Late Edition

Today, cloudy, rain, high 50. Tonight,

rain early, clearing late, low 43. To-
morrow, morning sunshine then
clouds arriving in the afternoon,
high 60. Weather map, Page A24.

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,673 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 $3.00

Coronavirus Death Rates:

DEADLIEST DAY April 7: 805 deaths
4 STATES DROWNING
How the States Compare
As governors look to lift restrictions, the country
continues to see spikes in deaths from the pandemic.
3 BENEATH A DELUGE
A chart for every state, Page A11.

March 22
stay-at-home
2
OF JOB LOSS CLAIMS
order
1
New York 79 deaths per 100,000 15,302 total deaths
Daily deaths per
100,000 people Delays in Paying Benefits Add Hardships
JAN. 21: FIRST U.S. CASE MARCH 1: FIRST MARCH 14: FIRST Data through April 22 That Could Hamper a Recovery
CASE IN THE STATE DEATH IN THE STATE
April 21: 376 deaths
By PATRICIA COHEN
4 Nearly a month after Washing- “gets deeper and deeper, and
ton rushed through an emergency more difficult to crawl out of.”
package to aid jobless Americans, Hours after the Labor Depart-
3 millions of laid-off workers have ment report, the House passed a
still not been able to apply for $484 billion coronavirus relief
those benefits — let alone receive package to replenish a depleted
them — because of overwhelmed small-business loan program and
2
March 21 state unemployment systems. fund hospitals and testing. The
stay-at-home Across the country, states have Senate approved the bill earlier
order
d frantically scrambled to handle a this week.
1 flood of applications and apply a Even as Congress continues to
New Jersey 57 deaths per 100,000 5,063 total deaths new set of federal rules even as provide aid, distribution has re-
more and more people line up for mained challenging. According to
MARCH 4 MARCH 10 help. On Thursday, the Labor De- the Labor Department, only 10
partment reported that another states have started making pay-
4.4 million people filed initial un- ments under the federal Pan-
March 23 employment claims last week, demic Unemployment Assistance
April 6: 39 deaths bringing the five-week total to
Washington 9 deaths per 100,000 696 total deaths program, which extends coverage
more than 26 million. to freelancers, self-employed
“At all levels, it’s eye-watering workers and part-timers. Most
JAN. 21 FEB. 26 states have not even completed
numbers,” Torsten Slok, chief in-
ternational economist at the system needed to start the
Deutsche Bank Securities, said. process.
March 19 Nearly one in six American work- Ohio, for example, will not start
April 22: 109 deaths ers has lost a job in recent weeks. processing claims under the ex-
California 4 deaths per 100,000 1,425 total deaths
Delays in delivering benefits, panded federal eligibility criteria
though, are as troubling as the until May 15. Recipients whose
JAN. 25 FEB. 6 state benefits ran out, but who can
sheer magnitude of the figures, he
April 21: 232 deaths said. Such problems not only cre- apply for extended federal bene-
ate immediate hardships, but also fits, will not begin to have their
affect the shape of the recovery claims processed until next Fri-
March 24 when the pandemic eases. day. Pennsylvania opened its web-
stay-at-home Laid-off workers need money site for residents to file for the fed-
order quickly so that they can continue eral program a few days ago, but
to pay rent and credit card bills some applicants were mistakenly
Michigan 28 deaths per 100,000 2,812 total deaths told that they were ineligible after
and buy groceries. If they can’t,
Mr. Slok said, the hole that the filling out the forms. The state has
MARCH 10 MARCH 18 larger economy has fallen into Continued on Page A10
April 18: 130 deaths

Illinois 12 deaths per 100,000 1,577 total deaths

March 21 Dying in Hotels
JAN. 24 MARCH 17
After New York
April 14:
129 deaths
Tried Isolation
By ASHLEY SOUTHALL
and NIKITA STEWART
March 23 When Robert Rowe Jr. was dis-
stay-at-home charged from the hospital this
order month after testing positive for ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

the coronavirus, he needed a The presence of antibodies in

Louisiana 32 deaths per 100,000 1,473 total deaths place to stay so he would not put blood can indicate immunity.
his 84-year-old father at risk. New
MARCH 9 MARCH 14 York City health officials put him
up at a three-star hotel in Mid-

April 3
April 20:
85 deaths
town Manhattan.
The room was provided under a
New York City
Georgia 8 deaths per 100,000 837 total deaths city program that was intended to
protect recovering patients’ fam-
ilies and roommates. Case work-
Seen Having
Source: New York Times database of reports
from state and local health agencies and hospitals
MARCH 2 MARCH 12
LAZARO GAMIO/THE NEW YORK TIMES
ers are supposed to check on the
patients twice a day by telephone. 1 in 5 Infected
But on Saturday, Mr. Rowe, 56,
was found dead in his room at the

Secretive Panel Guides Policy
As Deaths Pile Up in Britain
By MARK LANDLER
and STEPHEN CASTLE
LONDON — As the British gov-
ernment comes under mounting
criticism for its response to the co-
ronavirus — one that has left Brit-
ain ranking with Italy and Spain
as the worst hit countries in Eu-
rope — Prime Minister Boris
Johnson and his aides have de-
fended themselves by saying they
are “guided by the science.”
The trouble is, nobody knows
what the science is.
The government’s influential
Scientific Advisory Group for
Emergencies — known by its
soothing acronym, SAGE — oper-
ates as a virtual black box. Its list
of members is secret, its meetings
are closed, its recommendations
are private and the minutes of its
deliberations are published much
later, if at all.
Yet officials invoke SAGE’s
name endlessly without ever ex-
plaining how it comes up with its
advice — or even who these scien-
Government Criticized
for Lockdown Delay
tists are.
That lack of transparency has
become a point of contention, as
officials struggle to explain why
they waited until late March to
shift from a laissez-faire approach
to the virus to the stricter meas-
ures adopted by other European
countries. Critics say the delay
may have worsened a death toll
now surging past 20,000, and they
fault the government for leaving
people in the dark about why it
first chose this riskier path.
With all the secrecy, even some
of Britain’s top scientists say they
don’t know whether they can trust
the government’s approach.
“Is the science being followed
by the government on coro-
navirus?” said David King, a for-
mer chief scientific adviser to the
Continued on Page A9
No Rallies and No Golf,
Just the TV to Rankle Him
By KATIE ROGERS
and ANNIE KARNI
WASHINGTON — President
Trump arrives in the Oval Office
these days as late as noon, when
he is usually in a sour mood after
his morning marathon of televi-
sion.
WHITE He has been up in
HOUSE the White House
MEMO master bedroom as
early as 5 a.m.
watching Fox News, then CNN,
with a dollop of MSNBC thrown
in for rage viewing. He makes
calls with the TV on in the back-
ground, his routine since he first
arrived at the White House.
But now there are differences.
The president sees few allies
no matter which channel he
clicks. He is angry even with
Fox, an old security blanket, for
not portraying him as he would
like to be seen. And he makes
time to watch Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo’s briefings from New
York, closely monitoring for a
Feeling Alone, President
Stews Over Image
sporadic compliment or snipe.
Confined to the White House,
the president is isolated from the
supporters, visitors, travel and
golf that once entertained him,
according to more than a dozen
administration officials and close
advisers who spoke about Mr.
Trump’s strange new life. He is
tested weekly, as is Vice Presi-
dent Mike Pence, for Covid-19.
The economy — Mr. Trump’s
main case for re-election — has
imploded. News coverage of his
handling of the coronavirus has
been overwhelmingly negative
as Democrats have condemned
him for a lack of empathy, hon-
esty and competence. Even
Republicans have criticized Mr.
Trump’s briefings as long-winded
and his rough handling of critics
Continued on Page A5
Hilton Garden Inn on West 37th
Street, nearly 20 hours after a city
worker last phoned him, though it
was unclear whether he picked
up.
Two other men sent to the same
hotel — Julio Melendez, 42, and
Sung Mo Ping, 64 — also died last
weekend, and a fourth man in the
program died early this month at
a Queens hotel.
The deaths exposed holes in the
way the city monitors isolated pa-
tients and underscored the diffi-
culty in containing the outbreak in
New York City: how to keep peo-
ple who have been infected or ex-
posed to the coronavirus from
passing it on.
“This was his city, and it failed
him,” Mr. Rowe’s sister, Andrea
Rowe Crittenden, said. “New York
failed him.”
Borrowing from the experi-
ences of some Asian cities, health
officials in New York have made
isolating infected people, espe-
cially those who live in cramped
homes and homeless shelters, a
critical part of their plan to com-
bat the virus.
Since the three deaths at the
Hilton Garden Inn, Mayor Bill de
Blasio has stepped up efforts to
Continued on Page A13
By J. DAVID GOODMAN
and MICHAEL ROTHFELD
One of every five New York City
residents tested positive for anti-
bodies to the coronavirus, accord-
ing to preliminary results de-
scribed by Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo on Thursday that sug-
gested that the virus had spread
far more widely than known.
If the pattern holds, the results
from random testing of 3,000 peo-
ple raised the tantalizing prospect
that many New Yorkers — as
many as 2.7 million, the governor
said — who never knew they had
been infected had already encoun-
tered the virus, and survived. Mr.
Cuomo also said that such wide in-
fection might mean that the death
rate was far lower than believed.
While the reliability of some
early antibody tests has been
widely questioned, researchers in
New York have worked in recent
weeks to develop and validate
their own antibody tests, with fed-
eral approval. State officials be-
lieve that accurate antibody test-
ing is seen as a critical tool to help
determine when and how to begin
restarting the economy, and send-
ing people back to work.
“The testing also can tell you
Continued on Page A16

NATIONAL A19-21, 24 BUSINESS B1-8 SPECIAL SECTION

Chores 1, Career 0 Is It Showtime? Not So Fast Changing Course

INTERNATIONAL A18
U.S. Offers Aid to Greenland
The $12.1 million proposal irritated
some Danish officials, who recall Presi-
dent Trump’s talk of buying the island.
Germany Tries Syrian Officers
Activists describe the case, which in-
volves charges of crimes against hu-
manity, as a first step toward justice.
Women balancing careers with domes-
tic necessities are finding to their dis-
may that by and large, gender dispari-
ties have not disappeared as the home
has become the office. PAGE A19
An 18th Birthday Nightmare
Minors detained at the border are being
transferred to crowded and dangerous
ICE jails at high risk for coronavirus
transmission when they age out of
relatively benign shelters. PAGE A20
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23
David Brooks PAGE A23
Movie chains, with no new films and a
desire to not become virus hot spots,
don’t want to reopen too early. PAGE B1
Workers Sue Pork Plant
A lawsuit filed against a Smithfield
Foods plant claims it has created a
public nuisance by failing to protect
workers from the coronavirus. PAGE B3
SPORTSFRIDAY B9-13
The Draft, Decentralized
In an all-online event, the Bengals chose
Joe Burrow at No. 1. The Giants and the
Jets took offensive tackles. PAGES B9-12
WEEKEND ARTS C1-16
Virtual Visits, Real Inspiration
Museum websites are a terrific way to
wander among the world’s greatest art
works. A guide. PAGE C12
Pass the Mic, and the Memories
The documentary “Beastie Boys Story,”
directed by Spike Jonze, looks back on
the hip-hop trio with affection. PAGE C4
Like a storm at sea, the coronavirus has
brutally pushed schools in a new direc-
tion: providing quality online learning
to students of all ages. A section on
learning explores this new world.
OBITUARIES B14-16
Indiana Jones in a Miniskirt
Iris Love, a celebrity archaeologist, had
a second career breeding Westminster
champions. She was 86. PAGE B14
U(D54G1D)y+#!/!\!$!z
A2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
A. G. SULZBERGER
Publisher
Founded in 1851
ADOLPH S. OCHS
Publisher 1896-1935
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Publisher 1992-2017
Inside The Times
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Cig Harvey, who captured a touch of spring inside, is one of 15 photographers in “Still Lives.”
Documenting Life at a Standstill
By EMILY PALMER
In their dining room in New Orleans, L.
Kasimu Harris held the hand of his preg-
nant wife, her head slumped in her crossed
arms, as she struggled with unabated pains
months from her due date. When they
Good friends drove to the hospital the next day, he took
his camera, capturing his wife’s concerned
deserve extraordinary eyes over the top of a KN95 mask.
Mr. Harris was one of 15 photographers
across the country for The Times who
journalism. documented, with intimate images and
essays, their own experiences dealing with
isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Still Lives,” the package of their photo-
graphs and reflections, was published
online this week and will appear as a spe-
Refer someone to The Times.
cial print section this weekend.
Visit nytimes.com/refer.
The project was conceived after The
Times closed its main office in Manhattan
in March. Editors in the photo department,
working remotely and meeting over video
chat, observed that they were peering into
“these small digital windows into each
other’s homes and lives,” said Meaghan
Looram, director of photography. “We saw
an opportunity to tell an intimate story that
we hoped many of our readers would con-
nect with, particularly during a moment
where lots of people are feeling marooned
in one way or another.”
In order to capture a range of sheltering
experiences around the country, while also
protecting everyone’s health, the editors
directed photographers to become their
own subjects. “When you ask photogra-
phers to turn the lens on themselves, it
often illuminates something that a lot of
other people are feeling but don’t have an
artistic way of expressing,” said the photo
editor Morrigan McCarthy, who helped
originate the project.
Mr. Harris found himself chronicling a
mix of his quiet home life and tense mo-
ments as his wife passed through the hospi-
tal. (Doctors later assured them that every-
one was healthy.) “This assignment came
down at a time when I was trying to be
strong for myself and strong for my family,”
he said. “It gave me an outlet.”
Faltering under exhaustion, Brittainy
Newman, who self-quarantined after online
On This Day in History
A MEMORABLE HEADLINE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
MARK TWAIN — PHILOSOPHER OF DEMOCRACY
April 24, 1910. The cover story of The Times’s Sunday magazine was devoted to Mark
Twain, who died three days earlier. The article argued that Mr. Twain’s influence on
American letters extended far beyond the wit for which he was best known: To simply
call him a humorist “was as inadequate a description as would be the case if George
Washington was described as a ‘surveyor.’ ” It went on to outline some of Mr. Twain’s
commitment to democratic causes, including his support of women’s suffrage.
Helping you live better. Subscribers can browse the complete Times archives through 2002 at timesmachine.nytimes.com.
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A Note to Our Readers
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Tracking an Outbreak section
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The Newspaper
And Beyond
CORRECTIONS A21
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CIG HARVEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
VIDEO
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the
National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, said, “We will
have coronavirus in the fall.” See
doctors said she might have Covid-19, set him talk about the importance of
her timed camera on a tripod in the apart- containing the virus at that time,
ment she shared with her mother in New when influenza season is expected
York and retreated to her bedroom for to complicate response efforts.
another dinner served on a tray, separated nytimes.com/video
from her mom by a wall.
Even as she kept her distance, the cam-
era allowed her to bear witness to her
mother’s experience. One morning she
woke to her mother, a professional clown
who has owned her own entertainment
business for 20 years, “bawling her eyes
out” as she applied for unemployment.
Emily Kask interpreted her dark reality
in a self-portrait, peeking from the edge of
AUDIO
shuttered blinds in New Orlean’s Ninth
Ward. Shaken by a home invasion several On an episode of the “Rabbit
months earlier, Ms. Kask, living alone, Hole” podcast, meet a man who
says he became more extremist in
clamped her window shut, played a record-
ing of men coughing by her front door and, his political views through watch-
for this assignment, let herself focus on ing YouTube videos.
“these real deep fearful things.” nytimes.com/rabbithole
Recognizing the darkness of the world
outside her farmhouse kitchen in Maine,
Cig Harvey cultivated an alternative realm,
planting an indoor garden for her 8-year-
old daughter, Scout, to “create a space of
wonder and awe.” Ms. Harvey was wel-
comed one morning by colors bursting
from pots on her table: zinnias, marigolds,
morning glories and sunflowers.
After seeing everyone’s work, Ms. Har- EVENT
vey said that gaining a glimpse into others’
Can quarantine actually be fun?
experiences brought her to tears. “It was
Today at 5 p.m. E.D.T., join a group
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And mirroring the slowed rhythm of his Smarter Living team as they
own life in his photographic process, Tamir discuss video chat games, share
Kalifa sometimes shot just a few frames in tips on maintaining a social life
a day and developed, one by one, nine rolls and learn a new cocktail recipe.
of film, producing what the photo editor R.S.V.P. at
Jeffrey Furticella called “visual poetry.” timesevents@nytimes.com.
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 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N A3

ILLUSTRATION BY BEN DENZER

Of Interest
NOTEWORTHY FACTS FROM TODAY’S PAPER

Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles, The Musée du Louvre in Paris has

was one of the most famous dancers reported a tenfold increase in web
of the early 20th century; when he traffic, from 40,000 to 400,000
died in 1949, 32,000 mourners paid visitors a day.
their respects. Invite the Museum Into Your Home C12
A Trippy Musical Escape. Shall We Dance? C6 •
• When the Beastie Boys teamed
Retail sales tumbled 8.7 percent in up with Rick Rubin and Russell
March, by far the largest monthly Simmons, the group mutated from
decline ever recorded. a punk band into a rap act.
Jobless in America B1 Goofing Around as a Way of Life C4
• •
Dalkey, Ireland, is a seaside resort ARC DE TRIOMPHE Greenland contains 10 percent
town southeast of Dublin on what of the world’s fresh water.
is sometimes referred to as U.S. Aid Offer to Greenland Prompts Praise
“Ireland’s Amalfi Coast.” Most summer films cost $300 million And Suspicion A18

Irish Town Embraces, and Protects,

or more to make and market.
American Actor A4 Get Back to the Movies?
Theaters Say Not So Fast B1

The Conversation Spotlight

FOUR OF THE MOST READ, SHARED AND DISCUSSED POSTS ADDITIONAL REPORTAGE AND REPARTEE
FROM ACROSS NYTIMES.COM FROM OUR JOURNALISTS

1. Hidden Outbreaks Spread Through U.S. Cities
Far Earlier Than Americans Knew, Estimates Say
Researchers at Northeastern University shared data with The
Times that suggested thousands of coronavirus infections
were already in New York City on March 1, the day the city
officially logged its first case. Silent outbreaks were likely
being seeded around the country in early February. This
report was the most read article on Thursday.
2. What 5 Coronavirus Models Say the Next Month
Will Look Like
Several models predict that the country is currently past or
near the peak number of deaths for this wave of the epidemic.
3. ‘Sadness’ and Disbelief From a World
Missing American Leadership
Katrin Bennhold, The Times’s Berlin bureau chief, reported
how the U.S. response to the pandemic is being viewed
through a European lens. “Sometime in 2021 we come out of
this crisis and we will be in 2030,” said one political scientist,
speaking of history accelerating a decline of U.S. influence.
“There will be more Asia in the world and less West.”
A coronavirus-related death in California on Feb. 6 has raised
questions about the timeline of the U.S. outbreak, which is by
far the world’s largest. To get a scientific view of the implica-
tions, the Briefings team spoke to Carl Zimmer, a science
reporter, Times columnist and the author of “A Planet of Vi-
ruses.” Below are edited excerpts.
What do we know about the timing of the virus’s
arrival in the United States?
Studies of samples of virus from New York showed that
the vast majority belonged to lineages introduced from
Europe and probably arrived early to mid-February.
What the New York viruses are most similar to is not
the viruses in Italy, but viruses in England, in France,
in Belgium. It looks like a lot of viruses were moving
around in Europe, and some were brought to the United
States. The evidence from California indicates it was
arriving there by early or mid-January.

What are you looking for next?

In the autopsy for the Feb. 6 case, all they needed to

find to confirm that this person had Covid-19 was some
fragments of the virus’s genes. If you really want to know
more, you need the whole genome — all the genetic
material in the virus.

Then, looking at the mutations, you can see where the

virus came from, and you can start getting some guesses
about how it got there.
VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

But we’re dealing here with a deceased person. The virus

4. The Infection That’s Silently Killing in their remains is breaking down. Still, it’s possible that
Coronavirus Patients scientists may be able to extract enough virus to put the
Dr. Richard Levitan, an emergency physician, wrote about his genome back together. I’m hoping for that.
10-day experience in Bellevue Hospital in New York treating
pneumonia affecting Covid-19 patients. This Op-Ed has been To subscribe to the Morning Briefing newsletter, go to
widely read online all week. nytimes.com/newsletters.

BECAUSE THERE WILL BE NEW ADVENTURES

Quote of the Day “This was his city, and it failed him. New York failed him.” Compass Necklace - Designed in 18k gold or sterling silver
DYING IN HOTELS AFTER NEW ANDREA ROWE CRITTENDEN, whose brother, Robert Rowe Jr., 56, died in a Manhattan hotel room.
YORK TRIED ISOLATION A1 Health officials had put him there for isolation after he tested positive for the coronavirus.
Please call 866.598.2784 or Visit Us at
M O N I C A R I C H KO S A N N . C O M

The Mini Crossword Here to Help

BY JOEL FAGLIANO A RECIPE FOR BEER BREAD

1 2 3 4 Thanks to a can or bottle of beer, this crazy-easy, one-bowl bread has the yeasty taste and
texture of a traditional risen loaf but without any of the toil. It is also tender and incredi-
bly moist. We like it served with a bowl of hearty winter stew or toasted, with butter, for
5
breakfast. This recipe first appeared in The Times in 1987. FLORENCE FABRICANT

6
TIME: 40 MINUTES
YIELD: 1 LARGE LOAF
7
Unsalted butter, for greasing the pan
Cornmeal
8 3 cups all-purpose flour (see Tip)
3 teaspoons baking powder
4/24/2020 EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
ACROSS 1 (12-ounce) can beer (the blander the
1 Birthday purchase better)
5 “Zzzzz” sound 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

6 Namely (optional)
7 Knock the socks off 3. Remove from pan, drizzle with butter, if
8 Demographic cohort 1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a using, and allow to cool completely before
after millennials 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan and dust with slicing. The bread has a texture similar to that

DOWN
cornmeal. For stovetop baking, use a heavy
Dutch oven or similar pot that has been
of English muffins and tastes best toasted.
TIP: Three cups of self-rising flour can be
Come Together
1 Garden pest in the
greased and dusted with cornmeal but not substituted. Omit the baking powder and salt. CO N F E T T I U N I T Y B RAC E L E T
Harry Potter books
heated. 18 K / D i a m o n d s
2 Des Moines resident For more recipes, visit NYT Cooking
3 Hair problem caused by humidity 2. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and at nytcooking.com.
4 French for “head” stir in the beer. Place batter in the pan. Oven
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SOLUTION TO
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A4 FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Tracking an Outbreak
0N +

Coronavirus Update Where Cases Have Been Reported

As of Thursday evening, more than 856,000 people across every state, plus Washington, D.C., and four U.S. territories, have tested positive for the
coronavirus, according to a New York Times database. More than 43,800 people with the virus have died in the United States, a figure that is
Total Unemployed Rises Past 26 Million frequently increasing by more than 2,000 per day.

Cuomo and McConnell Clash Over Aid

Defiant Georgia Planning for Reopening Wash.
12,539
Maine
Mont. 907
N.D.
By JAMES BARRON 442 709
Vt.
Two numbers that were reported on Thursday made the conse- Ore. Minn.
825 N.H.
2,127 Idaho 2,942 N.Y.
quences of the coronavirus pandemic clearer: 4.4 million and 21 1,588 Mass.
1,688 263,460 42,944
percent. S.D. Wis. Mich.
5,052 33,929 R.I.
The first was the number of new U.S. unemployment claims filed Wyo.
1,956
6,256
last week. They brought the five-week total for people thrown out of 326 Pa. Conn.
work in the coronavirus pandemic to more than 26 million. Big as Iowa 38,256 23,100
that figure is, it does not capture the full extent of layoffs. Nev. Neb. 3,939 Ind. Ohio
N.J. Del.
4,208 1,827 12,438 14,694
And 21 percent? That was the proportion of people with coro- Ill. 99,989 3,308
Utah
navirus antibodies in New York City out of about 1,300 people who 3,612
36,935
W.Va. D.C. Md.
Colo.
were tested for them, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said. The 1,300 were 10,878 967 Va. 3,361 15,737
Calif. Kan.
tested for a state program that checked 3,000 customers at super- 37,949 Ky.
11,000
2,588 Mo.
markets and big-box stores. Statewide, nearly 14 percent of the tests 6,321 3,373
were positive. Tenn.
N.C.
The results raised the possibility that large numbers of New 7,608
Okla. 7,893
Yorkers had been infected without knowing it and had survived. The Ariz.
N.M. 3,017 Ark.
5,769 S.C.
governor’s announcement came a day after it became clear that the 2,210 2,465
4,761
outbreak must have begun earlier than had been thought, because
just-completed tests showed that a California woman had died of the Miss.
5,153 Ala. Ga.
virus on Feb. 6, more than three weeks before what had been con- La. 5,778 20,523
Texas 25,739
sidered the first death in the United States. The first death in New 22,173
York State was reported on March 14, an 82-year-old woman who Fla.
also had emphysema. 28,832
Alaska
Antibody tests are considered essential tools in deciding when 337
and how to relax stay-at-home restrictions and restart the economy.
Puerto Rico
Such tests indicate whether a person has immunity to a virus, not Hawaii
915
586
the virus itself, and the accuracy of some tests has been called into
question. Still, by the state’s numbers, more than 1.7 million people
in New York City and more than 2.6 million statewide have already
been infected. Those numbers are far greater than the 263,460 cases Note: The map shows the known locations of coronavirus cases by county. Circles are sized by the number of people there who have tested positive, which may
recorded by Thursday. But Mr. Cuomo said the numbers from the differ from where they contracted the illness. Some people who traveled overseas were taken for treatment in California, Nebraska and Texas. Puerto Rico is
sample would mean the fatality rate from the virus was relatively the only affected U.S. territory shown. Sources: State and local health agencies; hospitals; C.D.C. Data is as of April 23, 2020, at 5 p.m., Eastern. THE NEW YORK TIMES

low — about 0.5 percent.

Mr. Cuomo also took issue with Senator Mitch McConnell, the

Trump Says Look to Light. Experts Urge Caution.

Republican majority leader from Kentucky, who referred to a pro-
posal for federal aid for states and local governments hit by the
coronavirus as a “blue-state bailout.” Mr. McConnell said the finan-
cially troubled states should instead consider bankruptcy.
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, called that “one of the really dumb
ideas of all time.” President Trump has long
pinned his hopes on the powers of
“How ugly a thought,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Think of what he is
sunlight to defeat the Covid-19 vi-
saying. People died; 15,000 people died in New York, but they were
rus. On Thursday, he returned to
predominantly Democrats, so why should we help them?” that theme at the daily White
Mr. Cuomo, who referred to Mr. McConnell as the “grim reaper,” House coronavirus briefing,
said he had not spoken with the majority leader. The governor also bringing in a top administration
said that New York paid $116 billion a year more to the federal gov- scientist to back up his assertions
ernment than it received in aid, while Kentucky received $148 billion and theorizing — dangerously, in
more than it paid in. the view of some experts — about
Last week President Trump froze United States funding for the the effects of powerful light and
World Health Organization after accusing it of “severely mismanag- disinfectants on the virus.
ing and covering up” the spread of the virus. On Thursday, China As Mr. Trump stood beside him,
opened its checkbook, announcing a $30 million donation. the scientist, William N. Bryan,
Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign the head of science at the Depart-
Affairs, said on Twitter that it followed a $20 million contribution ment of Homeland Security, told
the briefing said the government
last month. “At this crucial moment,” she wrote, “supporting W.H.O.
had tested how sunlight and disin-
is supporting multilateralism and global solidarity.” Last year China
fectants — including bleach and
gave the agency $86 million, a small fraction of what the United alcohol — can kill the coronavirus
States provided. on surfaces in as little as 30 sec-
onds.
Mr. Trump got excited.
New Coronavirus Cases Announced Daily in U.S. “Supposing we hit the body with
As of Thursday evening, more than 856,000 people across every a tremendous — whether its ultra-
state, plus Washington, D.C., and four U.S. territories, have tested violet or just very powerful light
positive for the virus, according to a New York Times database. — and I think you said, that hasn’t
been checked but you’re going to
30,000 test it,” he said, appealing to Mr. AL DRAGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Bryan, who had returned to his
seat. “And then I said supposing
you brought the light inside the
20,000
New cases
body, which you can do, either
through the skin or in some other
7-day way. And I think you said you’re
average going to test that, too.”
10,000 Mr. Trump then shifted to em-
brace the findings of a slide in Mr.
Bryan’s presentation that noted
disinfectants like bleach were
even more effective in killing the
Feb. 26 April 23 virus.
“I see the disinfectant where it
Note: Thursday’s total is incomplete because some states report cases
after press time. Data is as of April 23, 2020, at 5 p.m., Eastern. knocks it out in a minute — one
Sources: State and local health agencies; hospitals; C.D.C. THE NEW YORK TIMES
minute,” the president said. “And
is there a way we can do some-
thing like that by injection inside,
Contrasting Plans for Reopening or almost a cleaning? Because
you see it gets in the lungs and it
Mr. Cuomo has said repeatedly that reopening the state would
does a tremendous number on the
depend on data from testing. But Georgia’s Republican governor
lungs, so it would be interesting to
went ahead with his plan for some businesses — including gyms, check that.”
hair and nail salons and tattoo parlors — to reopen on Friday, with Experts have long warned that
restaurants and movie theaters to follow on Monday. Gov. Brian ultraviolet lamps if used improp-
Kemp appeared unfazed by opposition that came not just from erly can harm humans — when
mayors in Georgia but also from the White House: Mr. Trump said the exposure is outside the body,
on Wednesday that he disagreed with Mr. Kemp’s decisions. “I think much less inside. But bottles of
it’s too soon,” the president said. bleach and other disinfectants
Other places opted for longer or shorter extensions of their carry sharp warnings of ingestion
rules. On the longer side: Lockdowns were extended in Greece and dangers. The disinfectants can kill
not only microbes but humans.
Malaysia. The stay-at-home rules in Greece will continue until May
When a reporter suggested that
4, a week after their planned expiration, and a spokesman for Prime
Mr. Trump’s proposed treatments
Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said they would be relaxed gradually
in May and June. Malaysia opted for a two-week continuation,
Katie Rogers contributed report-
through May 12. ing.
“We have not won the battle against the Covid-19 outbreak,” Mr.
Mitsotakis said, although he suggested that the government would
phase out restrictions if the number of cases continued to decline.
On the shorter side, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic of Croatia #YOUMUSTBEBORED
announced a phased lifting of lockdown rules, but social distancing
William N. Bryan, the head of science at the Department of Homeland Security, on Thursday.
might be dangerous, letting “peo-
ple think they would be safe by go-
ing outside in the heat considering
that so many people are dying in
Florida,” Mr. Trump pivoted to an-
other of his regular briefing
themes: attacking the news me-
dia.
“Yeah, here — here we go,” he
began. “The new headline is,
‘Trump asks people to go outside,
that’s dangerous.’ Here we go
same old group. Are you ready? I
hope people enjoying the sun and
if it has an impact that’s great.”
Seeking affirmation of his opin-
ion, Mr. Trump turned to Dr. Debo-
rah Birx, the White House coro-
navirus response coordinator,
who was seated in the briefing
room as usual. He asked if she had
heard of the success of sunlight as
an effective tool against viruses,
and notably the coronavirus.
“Not as a treatment,” Dr. Birx
replied. “I mean, certainly fever is
a good thing when you have a fe-
ver. It helps your body respond
but not as — I have not seen heat
or . . . ”
Mr. Trump cut short her answer.
“I—I think that’s a great thing
to look at,” he said. “I mean you
know. O.K.?”
As the pandemic has spread to
countries experiencing hot
weather, including Australia and
Iran, some groups have investi-
gated whether the summer sea-
son would slow the virus. Early
this month, a committee of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences
looked exclusively at humidity
and temperature and found that
they would have a minimal impact
on the virus.
In his remaks, Mr. Bryan told
the briefing that the novel coro-
navirus dies fast when exposed to
sunlight, high temperatures and
humidity. He cited experiments
the agency had conducted on the
deadly virus at a high-security
laboratory in Frederick, Md.
“Our most striking observation
to date is the powerful effect that
solar light appears to have on
killing the virus — both surfaces
and in the air,” Mr. Bryan said.
“We’ve seen a similar effect with
both temperature and humidity as
well, where increasing the tem-
perature and humidity, or both, is
generally less favorable to the vi-
rus.”
The sunlight finding was no sur-
prise to life scientists who, for
many decades, have reported that
ultraviolet light — an invisible but
energetic part of the sun’s electro-
magnetic spectrum — can dam-
age DNA, kill viruses and turn hu-
man skin cells from healthy to
cancerous.
For public health, the big chal-
lenge is widening such narrow
laboratory findings so they take
into account how the global envi-
ronment and its changing
weather and endless nuances can
impact the overall result — most
especially on the question of
whether the virus that causes
Covid-19 will diminish in summer-
time. This week, a pair of ecologi-
cal modelers at the University of
Connecticut reported evidence
that balmy weather may indeed
slow the coronavirus, but not
enough to do away with the social-
distancing measures advised by
public health officials.
The inherent limitations of lab
studies were driven home on April
7 in a letter to the White House
from a National Academy of Sci-
ences panel looking into research
on the Covid-19 virus. “With ex-
perimental studies,” the panel
said, “environmental conditions
can be controlled, but almost al-
ways the conditions fail to ad-
equately mimic those of the natu-
ral setting.”

Ping-Pong Balls, Tricks With Video and Selfies Imitating Art

will remain a requirement. “This is not the return to life before the
epidemic,” he said. Small businesses can reopen next week, along
with bookstores, museums and art galleries. Malls and outdoor
cafes can reopen starting May 11. By DERRICK BRYSON TAYLOR #FliptheSwitch went viral, as did a clip of Jenni- #BetweenArtandQuarantine
The coronavirus patient with the ruffled hair said to call him With the coronavirus pan- Early last month, the lyrics “I just fer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez. While the pandemic has shut-
Boris. That put a nervous nurse at ease on his first night looking demic continuing to upend fa- flipped the switch” from the tered most public institutions,
#DontRushChallenge
after Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain at St. Thomas’ Hospi- miliar rhythms of life, leaving Drake song “Nonstop” inspired a museumgoers have shifted their
tal in London. The nurse, Luis Pitarma, said that he felt the respon- schools shuttered, millions out viral challenge on TikTok that The song “Don’t Rush” by the focus online, where people are
sibility “was quite overwhelming” but that Mr. Johnson “just wanted of work and billions stuck at eventually made its way to Insta- British hip-hop outfit Young T & cleverly replicating famous art-
to be looked after like anyone else.” Another nurse who took care of home, those looking for ways to gram. All over, people began Bugsey provided the backdrop works. Participants use toilet
Mr. Johnson, Jenny McGee, told Television New Zealand that he pass the time have gotten cre- swapping clothes, poses and for this challenge. In some vid- paper, food, old clothes and more
ative. sometimes attitudes when the eos, participants pass around a to form a living archive of creativ-
“absolutely needed to be” in intensive care. Mr. Johnson mentioned
lights are switched off and then makeup brush like a wand that ity in isolation. The Instagram
the two nurses after he was discharged on April 12. In the absence of jam-packed back on. A version featuring magically upgrades their look. account @tussenkunstenquaran-
calendars, people are turning to Senator Elizabeth Warren of One popular take featured New taine collects and posts submis-
Coronavirus Update wraps up the day’s developments with infor- social media challenges in Massachusetts and Kate McKin- Orleans police officers passing sions from locked-down artists all
mation from across the virus report. droves. non of “Saturday Night Live” around their hats. over.

Tracking an Outbreak Public Health and the White House
VACCINATIONS
Afraid of One Virus, Parents Delaying Immunizations May Risk Others
By JAN HOFFMAN
As parents around the country
cancel well-child checkups to avoid
coronavirus exposure, public
health experts fear they are inad-
vertently sowing the seeds of an-
other health crisis. Immunizations
are dropping at a dangerous rate,
putting millions of children at risk
for measles, whooping cough and
other life-threatening illnesses.
“The last thing we want as the
collateral damage of Covid-19 are
outbreaks of vaccine-preventable
diseases, which we will almost cer-
tainly see if there continues to be a
drop in vaccine uptake,” said Dr.
Sean T. O’Leary, a member of the
American Academy of Pediatrics’
committee on infectious diseases.
In the last few years, early child-
hood immunization rates have
been slipping in some hot spots
around the country, and in 2019, the
United States very nearly lost its
measles elimination status. While
current nationwide vaccine figures
are not available, anecdotal evi-
dence and subsets of data are
alarming.
PCC, a pediatric electronic
health records company, gathered
vaccine information from 1,000 in-
dependent pediatricians nation-
wide. Using the week of February
16 as a pre-coronavirus baseline,
PCC found that during the week of
April 5, the administration of mea-
sles, mumps and rubella shots
dropped by 50 percent; diphtheria
and whooping cough shots by 42
percent; and HPV vaccines by 73
percent.
The doses that states distribute
in a federally funded program for
uninsured patients called Vaccines
for Children have also dropped sig-
nificantly since the beginning of
March. The Massachusetts health
department said its doses were
down 68 percent in the first two
weeks of April, compared with the
previous year. Minnesota reported
that its doses of measles, mumps
and rubella vaccine dropped by 71
percent toward the end of March.
In Washington State, dozens of
practices and clinics have had to
reduce hours or even temporarily
close. The state already had its big-
gest measles outbreak in nearly 30
years last year.
“We know our vaccine rates
were already tenuous, so any addi-
tional hit to that is a great worry,”
said Dr. Elizabeth Meade, presi-
dent of the state’s chapter of the
American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Meade leads calls twice a week
with physicians throughout the
state about how to maintain immu-
nizations and stay solvent.
The problem is global. National
immunization programs in more
than two dozen countries have
been suspended, which could also
leave more than 100 million chil-
dren vulnerable, a consortium of
international organizations, in-
cluding UNICEF and the World
Health Organization, recently re-
ported.
“Internationally, measles and
diphtheria will pop up around the
world. Even with limited travel,
they can make it into the United
States,” Dr. O’Leary, an immuniza-
WHITE HOUSE MEMO
No Rallies and No Golf, With Just the TV to Rankle Him, Trump Stews in Isolation
From Page A1
as unproductive.
His own internal polling shows
him sliding in some swing states,
a major reason he declared a
temporary halt to the issuance of
green cards to those outside the
United States — an order aimed
to please his political base, peo-
ple close to him said, and the
kind of move he makes when
things feel out of control. Friends
who have spoken to him said he
seemed unsettled and worried
about losing the election.
But the president’s primary
focus, advisers said, is assessing
how his performance on the
virus is measured in the news
media, and the extent to which
history will blame him.
“He’s frustrated,” said Stephen
Moore, an outside economic
adviser to Mr. Trump who was
the president’s pick to run the
Federal Reserve before his his-
tory of sexist comments and lack
of child support payments sur-
faced. “It’s like being hit with a
meteor.”
Mr. Trump frequently vents
about how he is portrayed. He
was enraged by an article this
month in which his health secre-
tary, Alex M. Azar II, was said to
have warned Mr. Trump in Janu-
ary about the possibility of a
pandemic. Mr. Trump was upset
that he was being blamed while
Mr. Azar was portrayed more
favorably, aides said.
Hogan Gidley, a White House
spokesman, disputed that the
president’s focus was on his
news coverage, and said in a
statement that “President
Trump’s highest priority is the
health and safety of the Ameri-
can people.”
Aides said the president’s low
Carson Sheffield, 18 months old, with Dr. Mona Doss of Boston Medical Center, as Priscilla Stout, left, prepared a vaccine for him.
A global problem,
threatening the health
of millions of children.
tion expert at Children’s Hospital
in Denver, said.
According to immunization ex-
perts, the optimum rate of cover-
age for many vaccines, known as
herd immunity, is about 90 to 95
percent.
The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, the American
Academy of Pediatrics, and the
American Academy of Family Phy-
sicians have each been urging doc-
tors to maintain vaccination sched-
ules as rigorously as reasonably
possible, particularly for the
youngest children. Vaccinate Your
Family, a national nonprofit group,
is pushing families to set remind-
ers to reschedule visits.
Though many doctors note that
vaccine-preventable diseases can
be more deadly to children than
Covid-19 seems to be, parents are
understandably focused on the
threat at hand. Over the last six
weeks, the loud, consistent public
message has been to keep children
at home, and to take them to the
doctor only if necessary.
Initially, medical practices were
apprehensive too. In early March,
the health clinic in Barre, Mass.,
called Emily Hoag to say it had
postponed her baby’s vaccine ap-
pointment for a month to prevent
the spread of coronavirus infec-
tion. Ms. Hoag felt conflicted: If
her baby, Karson, missed his two-
month immunization, she feared,
point was in mid-March, when
Mr. Trump, who had dismissed
the virus as “one person coming
in from China” and no worse than
the flu, saw deaths and infections
from Covid-19 rising daily. Mike
Lindell, a Trump donor campaign
surrogate and the chief executive
of MyPillow, visited the White
House later that month and said
the president seemed so glum
that Mr. Lindell pulled out his
phone to show him a text mes-
sage from a Democratic-voting
friend of his who thought Mr.
Trump was doing a good job.
Mr. Lindell said Mr. Trump
perked up after hearing the
praise. “I just wanted to give him
a little confidence,” Mr. Lindell
said.
The Daily Briefings
The daily White House task force
briefing is the one portion of the
day that Mr. Trump looks for-
ward to, although even Republi-
cans say that the two hours of
political attacks, grievances and
falsehoods by the president are
hurting him politically.
Mr. Trump will hear none of it.
Aides say he views them as
prime-time shows that are the
best substitute for the rallies he
can no longer attend but craves.
Mr. Trump rarely attends the
task force meetings that precede
the briefings, and he typically
does not prepare before he steps
in front of the cameras. He is
often seeing the talking points for
the first time, although aides said
he makes tweaks with a Sharpie
just before he reads them live. He
hastily plows through them,
usually in a monotone, in order to
get to the question-and-answer
bullying session with reporters
that he relishes.
The briefing’s critics, including
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
he would be susceptible to any
number of diseases. But if she took
him to the clinic, they both might
be exposed to Covid-19.
A few hours later, Dr. Kristina
Gracey, a family medicine physi-
cian at the Barre Family Health
Clinic, reached out to the new
mother: Would she like a house
call?
That afternoon, Dr. Gracey came
to Ms. Hoag’s home. After remov-
ing her shoes, meticulously wash-
ing her hands and wiping her
stethoscope and baby scale, Dr.
Gracey gave Karson his shots.
Both mother and baby immedi-
ately burst into tears.
“Karson cried for a minute and
then calmed down, and I was just
so grateful that Dr. Gracey was
there and able to give him the vac-
cinations he needed,” Ms. Hoag
said.
Dr. Gracey, who has a degree in
public health and has practiced in
Uganda, has no qualms about
home visits, which she and her col-
leagues are making several times
a week.
“We have so many women who
are struggling with what it feels
like to have a child in the setting of
Covid-19,” she said. “And especially
for a new mom who has concerns
about the risks of coming into the
office, it can feel comfortable to re-
ceive care within the home.”
Dr. Gracey’s colleagues and
other medical practices are experi-
menting with other ways to boost
vaccine rates during the outbreak,
including setting up a vaccination
tent in a field.
Many practices now schedule
well-child visits exclusively in the
Mr. Cuomo, have pointed out the
obvious: With two hours of the
president’s day dedicated to
hosting what is still referred to
as a prime-time news briefing,
who is going to actually fix the
pandemic?
Even Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one
of the experts appointed to ad-
vise the president on the best
way to handle the outbreak, has
complained that the amount of
time he must spend onstage in
the briefings each day has a
“draining” effect on him.
They have the opposite effect
on the president. How he arrived
at them was almost an accident.
Mr. Trump became enraged
watching the coverage of his
10-minute Oval Office address in
March that was rife with inaccu-
racies and had little in terms of
action for him to announce. He
complained to aides that there
were few people on television
willing to defend him.
The solution, aides said, came
two days later, when Mr. Trump
appeared in the Rose Garden to
declare a national emergency
and answer questions from re-
porters. As he admonished jour-
nalists for asking “nasty” ques-
tions, Mr. Trump found the back-
and-forth he had been missing.
The virus had not been a perfect
enemy — it was impervious to
his browbeating — but baiting
reporters energized him.
“I don’t take responsibility at
all,” Mr. Trump told White House
correspondents in answer to one
question.
His first news conference in
the briefing room took place the
next day, on a Saturday, after Mr.
Trump arrived unannounced in
the Situation Room, wearing a
polo shirt and baseball cap, and
told the group he planned to
morning and sick visits in the af-
ternoon, so that an office can be de-
contaminated at the end of the day.
Some have families wait in the car
and, when an exam room is ready,
a gowned nurse escorts parent and
child in for the vaccine.
Dr. Jeanne M. Marconi’s prac-
tice in Norwalk, Conn., which had
been doing flu clinics in parking
lots for years, has adapted that
procedure for vaccines generally:
Parents pull up, briefly roll down a
car window, the child extends an
arm, and a masked, gowned health
care worker does a quick jab. Over
and out.
“We’re trying to alleviate all of
the fears they have and keep up
with the care,” Dr. Marconi said.
Last week, the pediatric ambu-
latory department at Boston Medi-
cal Center, which treats nearly
15,000 children, began sending
Dr. Aniqa Anwar vaccinating Finlay Kaeyer during a drive-up
service at the Center for Advanced Pediatrics in Norwalk, Conn.
attend the briefing and watch
from a chair on the side. When
aides told him that reporters
would simply yell questions at
him, even if he was not on the
small stage, he agreed to take the
podium. He has not looked back
since.
When Mr. Trump finishes up
90 or more minutes later, he
heads back to the Oval Office to
watch the end of the briefings on
TV and compare notes with
whoever is around from his inner
circle.
The New Pecking Order
That circle has shrunk signifi-
cantly as the president, who
advisers say is more sensitive to
criticism than at nearly any other
point in his presidency, has come
to rely on only a handful of long-
time aides.
Hope Hicks, a former commu-
nications director who rejoined
the White House this year as
counselor to the president, main-
tains his daily schedule. His
former personal assistant,
Johnny McEntee, now runs presi-
dential personnel.
Ms. Hicks and Mr. McEntee,
along with Dan Scavino, the
president’s social media guru
who was promoted this week to
deputy chief of staff for commu-
nications, provide Mr. Trump
with a link to the better old days.
The three are the ones outside
advisers get in touch with to find
out if it’s a good time to reach the
president or pass on a message.
Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s
new chief of staff, is still finding
his footing and adjusting to the
nocturnal habits of Mr. Trump,
who recently placed a call to Mr.
Meadows, a senior administra-
tion official said, at 3:19 a.m. Mr.
Meadows works closely with
DAVID DEGNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
vaccination mobile units into city
neighborhoods. It also stationed a
dedicated van for vaccines and
well-baby checkups in front of the
hospital.
In the early weeks of the shelter-
in-place orders, doctors concen-
trated efforts on vaccinating in-
fants up to 2 years old, and waved
off the disruption to the schedule
for older children as temporary,
saying it could readily be ad-
dressed once the restrictions lifted.
But the longer that the orders con-
tinue, the more worried doctors be-
come about vaccine protection for
older children.
One concern is that if booster
shots are missed — for diseases
like measles, mumps and rubella
for 4- and 5-year-olds, and tetanus
and whooping cough, for 11-year-
olds — immunity will wane.
At 11, children should also re-
MONICA JORGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
another trusted insider: Jared
Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law
and de facto chief of staff.
“They have been really con-
fined and figuratively impris-
oned,” Matthew Dallek, a political
historian at George Washington
University, said about presidents
who have kept close to the White
House in times of crisis.
While many officials have been
encouraged to work remotely
and the Old Executive Office
Building is empty, the West
Wing’s tight quarters are still
packed. Mr. Pence and his top
aides, usually stationed across
the street, are working exclu-
sively from the White House,
along with most of the senior
aides, who dine from the takeout
mess while the in-house dining
room remains closed. Few aides
wear masks except for Matthew
Pottinger, the deputy national
security adviser, and some of his
staff.
The Day Ends as It Began
As soon as he gets to the Oval
Office, the president often re-
ceives his daily intelligence brief-
ing, and Mr. Pence sometimes
joins him. Then there are meet-
ings with his national security
team or economic advisers.
Throughout the day, Mr. Trump
calls governors, will have lunch
with cabinet secretaries and
pores over newspapers, which he
treats like official briefing books
and reads primarily in paper
clippings that aides bring to him.
He calls aides about stories he
sees, either to order them to get a
world leader on the phone or to
ask questions about something
he has read.
Many friends said they were
less likely to call Mr. Trump’s
cellphone, assuming he does not
N A5
ceive their first meningitis vac-
cine. Preteens are recommended
to get the HPV vaccine series,
which protects against certain
types of cancer.
Beginning next month, Dr. Elea-
nor Menzin, managing partner of
Longwood Pediatrics in Boston,
will try to vaccinate older children,
when the practice’s waiting rooms
will still be relatively empty.
“Looking ahead, I think it’s unwise
to get behind even on older kids,
because of the logistics of catching
them up, given what I predict will
be a long period of avoiding
crowds,” she said.
Many doctors already report
that the backlog from canceled ap-
pointments for younger children is
staggering. But summer appoint-
ment calendars are typically filled
by older children, who need vac-
cine documentation for school and
college. Pediatricians, who report
that visits have dropped by 50 to 70
percent, are laying off staff; they
do not know whether they will be
able to handle the rush of last-
minute visits in a few months.
Some health officials are won-
dering whether school registration
policies will need to be adjusted.
Health experts are also worried
about day care centers. Licensed
centers require proof of vaccina-
tion. Even assuming that parents
could swiftly get immunization ap-
pointments for their young chil-
dren, most vaccines take between
two and four weeks before provid-
ing full protection.
Dr. Menzin, an instructor of pe-
diatrics at Harvard Medical
School, said the pandemic was a
warning for doctors to rethink
their messaging:
“It no longer suffices for us to
say, ‘We’re open if you want to
come in,’ versus, ‘We want you to
come in because this is important.
What is keeping you from getting
your child vaccinated and let’s
solve that together,’” said Dr. Men-
zin, who has studied bus schedules
with patients and helped pick days
when the weather forecast sug-
gests that they could walk to the
visit.
A common retort to fears about
outbreaks of vaccine-preventable
illnesses is that transmission will
have also dropped because of so-
cial distancing. But that assertion
leaves many pediatricians shaking
their heads.
“They’re at less risk right now,
but that risk isn’t zero,” said Dr.
Menzin. While sick visits are down,
they have not disappeared: Vi-
ruses of all sorts are still making
plenty of children miserable.
Despite parents’ reluctance to
bring in their children to be vacci-
nated now, several doctors re-
marked on a noticeable positive
shift in attitude toward immuniza-
tions, after years of a vocal anti-
vaccine movement raising ques-
tions in parents’ minds.
“If anything, I’ve noticed a
change in families becoming more
interested in vaccines,” said Dr.
Meade, who practices in Washing-
ton, which has large pockets of vac-
cine-hesitant families. “They’re
recognizing how devastating infec-
tious diseases can be.”
want to hear their advice. Those
who do reach him said phone
calls have grown more clipped:
Conversations that used to last
20 minutes now wrap up in three.
Mr. Trump will still take calls
from Brad Parscale, his cam-
paign manager, on the latest on
polling data. The president will in
turn call Mr. Meadows and
Kellyanne Conway about key
congressional races.
The president’s aides have
slowly lined up more opportuni-
ties to keep him engaged. Last
week, a small group of coro-
navirus survivors visited the
White House. Then Mr. Trump
hosted a celebration of America’s
truckers on the South Lawn.
After he is done watching the
end of the daily White House
briefing, Mr. Trump watches
television in his private dining
room off the Oval Office. Aides
who are still around will join him
to rehash the day and offer their
assessments on the briefings.
Comfort food — including French
fries and Diet Coke — is readily
available.
Lately, aides say, his mood has
started to brighten as his admin-
istration moves to open the econ-
omy. His new line, both in public
and in private, is that there is
reason to be optimistic.
If he is not staying late in the
West Wing, Mr. Trump occasion-
ally has dinner with his wife,
Melania Trump, and their son,
Barron, who recently celebrated
his 14th birthday at home.
By the end of the day, Mr.
Trump turns back to his constant
companion, television. Upstairs
in the White House private quar-
ters — often in his own bedroom
or in a nearby den — he flicks
from channel to channel, review-
ing his performance.
A6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Tracking an Outbreak Room With a View

While Sheltering in Place,

Seeing a Range of Emotions
BED-STUY, BROOKLYN
This article is by Antonio de Luca, Sasha Portis and Adriana Ramic

Windows are often described as the eyes of a

building. They are a symbol of pondering, an
aperture through which we can experience the
world outside while remaining inside — an
important feature now that millions of New
Yorkers have had to move their lives indoors. •
We reached out to 17 illustrators and artists
currently sheltering in place in neighborhoods
across the region and asked them to draw what
they see out of their windows, and to show us
what it feels like to be in New York at this rare
moment in time. • We received images full of
conflicting and immediately recognizable
emotions: images that communicate the eerie
stillness of the city and make connections to
history, odes to essential workers and the
changing of the seasons. • The act of drawing
offers a different kind of truth than photography
can. It is an additive form where images are
built up from a blank surface. Illustration can
MARK PERNICE
evoke empathy and bring shared experiences
Looking out the window feels like we’re at
into view as millions of people around the world
a human zoo watching the wild outdoors
find themselves in a similar position: staring out
from the safety of our couch.
their windows, wondering what’s ahead.
CHRISTOPHER SILAS NEAL

ASTORIA, QUEENS ROCKVILLE CENTRE, LONG ISLAND BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN

01. The more you see the more is seen. Everything feels ghostly, and every movement The duality of support and positivity, with
02. A miracle — an antidote. through the neighborhood seems unique and an undercurrent of anxiety, I think, speaks
03. Small is still beautiful. important. to how everyone is feeling right now.
MAZIYAR PAHLEVAN PATRICK EDELL ARIEL DAVIS

EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN MOTT HAVEN, THE BRONX

I have been simultaneously enjoying and being My sense of time seems to stretch and shrink in The economic aspect of this pandemic feels
disturbed by the silence at the moment. weird ways, and I am working more than ever truly terrifying.
to escape the dire reality.
PETER ARKLE CINDY JI HYE KIM
JOOHEE YOON

Tracking an Outbreak Room With a View
PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN
This drawing is my little ode to delivery
people. They’re putting themselves at great
risk to keep this city running while medical
staff are on the front lines. If you’re able, tip
very generously.
LAUREN TAMAKI
BED-STUY, BROOKLYN
There’s a tree outside our window that seems like
it’s in the apartment with us. Throughout the day
I feel a bunch of different things: disconnected,
disappointed, sad, angry.
DANIEL SALMIERI
BED-STUY, BROOKLYN
I’m concerned about how this will affect us in the
long run, while hopeful that it might also bring
good change. If there is any city full of resilience,
ours is a strong contender.
PING ZHU
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N A7
FOREST HILLS, QUEENS MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, MANHATTAN
At the moment I am worried about what is For three weeks, I have not seen
going to happen when this is all over and anything move.
wondering when this is going to end. YUKO SHIMIZU
NORMANDIE SYKEN
STUYVESANT TOWN, MANHATTAN RIDGEWOOD, QUEENS
Whenever I look out of my window it seems like It’s as if I’m in a place that looks like New York,
everything is normal, and that worries me. but I don’t recognize it at all.
BRÁULIO AMADO KATHERINE LAM
PARKCHESTER, THE BRONX CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN
In the Bronx, we are banging pots and pans, My feelings go from a dull, low-level stress
calling on Cuomo to cancel rent for the tenants to a heightened sense of connection with all
in the city during this unprecedented crisis. I of my neighbors.
feel indignant. JOSH COCHRAN
SHELLYNE RODRIGUEZ
A8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak Global Response
GEOPOLITICAL SHIFT
‘How Can This Happen?’: A World Missing American Leadership
By KATRIN BENNHOLD
BERLIN — As images of Ameri-
ca’s overwhelmed hospital wards
and snaking jobless lines have
flickered across the world, people
on the European side of the Atlan-
tic are looking at the richest and
most powerful nation in the world
with disbelief.
“When people see these pictures
of New York City they say, ‘How
can this happen? How is this possi-
ble?’” said Henrik Enderlein, pres-
ident of the Berlin-based Hertie
School, a university focused on
public policy. “We are all stunned.
Look at the jobless lines. Twenty-
two million,” he added.
“I feel a desperate sadness,” said
Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of
European history at Oxford Uni-
versity and a lifelong and ardent
Atlanticist.
The pandemic sweeping the
globe has done more than take lives
and livelihoods from New Delhi to
New York. It is shaking fundamen-
tal assumptions about American
exceptionalism — the special role
the United States played for dec-
ades after World War II as the
reach of its values and power made
it a global leader and example to
the world.
Today it is leading in a different
way: More than 840,000 Ameri-
cans have been diagnosed with
Covid-19 and at least 46,784 have
died from it, more than anywhere
else in the world.
As the calamity unfolds, Presi-
dent Trump and state governors
are arguing not only over what to
do, but also over who has the au-
thority to do it. Mr. Trump has fo-
mented protests against the safety
measures urged by scientific advis-
ers, misrepresented facts about the
virus and the government re-
sponse nearly daily, and this week
used the virus to cut off the issuing
of green cards to people seeking to
emigrate to the United States.
“America has not done badly, it
has done exceptionally badly,” said
Dominique Moïsi, a political scien-
tist and senior adviser at the Paris-
based Institut Montaigne.
The pandemic has exposed the
strengths and weaknesses of just
about every society, Mr. Moïsi
noted. It has demonstrated the
strength of, and suppression of in-
formation by, an authoritarian Chi-
nese state as it imposed a lockdown
in the city of Wuhan. It has shown
the value of Germany’s deep well of
public trust and collective spirit,
even as it has underscored the
country’s reluctance to step up
forcefully and lead Europe.
And in the United States, it has
exposed two great weaknesses
that, in the eyes of many Euro-
peans, have compounded one an-
other: the erratic leadership of Mr.
Trump, who has devalued exper-
tise and often refused to follow the
advice of his scientific advisers,
and the absence of a robust public
health care system and social
safety net.
“America prepared for the
wrong kind of war,” Mr. Moïsi said.
“It prepared for a new 9/11, but in-
stead a virus came.”
“It raises the question: Has
America become the wrong kind of
power with the wrong kind of prior-
ities?” he asked.
Ever since Mr. Trump moved
into the White House and turned
America First into his administra-
Christopher F. Schuetze contribut-
ed reporting from Berlin, and Con-
stant Méheut from Paris.
LATIN AMERICA
Ecuador’s Death Toll Among the Worst of Any Nation, Mortality Data Shows
By JOSÉ MARÍA LEÓN CABRERA
and ANATOLY KURMANAEV
QUITO, Ecuador — With bodies
abandoned on sidewalks, slumped
in wheelchairs, packed into card-
board coffins and stacked by the
hundreds in morgues, it is clear
that Ecuador has been devastated
by the coronavirus.
But the epidemic is even worse
than many people in the country re-
alize.
The death toll in Ecuador during
the outbreak was 15 times higher
than the official number of Covid-19
deaths reported by the govern-
ment, according to an analysis of
mortality data by The New York
Times.
The numbers suggest that the
South American country is suffer-
ing one of the worst outbreaks in
the world.
The figures provide a dire indica-
tion of the damage the virus can do
to developing countries, where it
can quickly overwhelm health care
systems and even the govern-
ment’s ability to keep count of how
many people are falling to the dis-
ease.
“There were people dying at the
doors of our clinics and we had no
way of helping them,” said Marcelo
Castillo, head of an intensive care
unit in a private hospital. “Mothers,
husbands, asking in tears for a bed,
because, ‘You are a doctor, and you
tion’s guiding mantra, Europeans
have had to get used to the presi-
dent’s casual willingness to risk
decades-old alliances and rip up in-
ternational agreements. Early on,
he called NATO “obsolete” and
withdrew U.S. support from the
Paris climate agreement and the
Iran nuclear deal.
But this is perhaps the first
global crisis in more than a century
where no one is even looking to the
United States for leadership.
In Berlin, Germany’s foreign
minister, Heiko Maas, has said as
much.
China took “very authoritarian
measures, while in the U.S., the vi-
rus was played down for a long
time,” Mr. Maas recently told Der
Spiegel magazine.
“These are two extremes, nei-
ther of which can be a model for Eu-
rope,” Mr. Maas said.
America once told a story of
hope, and not just to Americans.
West Germans like Mr. Maas, who
grew up on the front line of the Cold
have to help us.’”
A staggering number of people
— about 7,600 more this year —
died in Ecuador from March 1 to
April 15 than the average in recent
years, according to an analysis of
official death registration data by
The Times.
That spike stands in stark con-
trast to the number of deaths that
the government has officially at-
tributed to the coronavirus: 503
people by April 15.
Mortality data in the middle of a
pandemic is inexact, and it could
change. The additional deaths in-
clude those from Covid-19, as well
as from other causes, including
people who could not be treated at
hospitals inundated with coro-
navirus patients.
But the data points to an enor-
mous, and sudden, increase in
deaths. Three times the usual num-
ber of people died in Ecuador dur-
ing the first two weeks of April,
when the number of people falling
ill reached a peak — an extraordi-
nary rise that exceeds increases
seen in similar data from Spain and
the United Kingdom.
Ecuador’s beleaguered govern-
ment, which is also dealing with its
worst economic crisis in decades,
acknowledged early in the out-
break that its official mortality fig-
ures fell far short of reality.
“We know that both the number
of infections and the number of
LAETITIA VANCON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
War, knew that story by heart, and
like many others in the world, be-
lieved it.
But nearly three decades later,
America’s story is in trouble.
The country that helped defeat
fascism in Europe 75 years ago
next month, and defended democ-
racy on the Continent in the dec-
ades that followed, is doing a worse
job of protecting its own citizens
than many autocracies and democ-
racies.
There is a special irony: Ger-
many and South Korea, both prod-
ucts of enlightened postwar Ameri-
can leadership, have become po-
tent examples of best practices in
the coronavirus crisis.
But critics now see America not
only failing to lead the world’s re-
sponse, but letting down its own
people as well.
“There is not only no global lead-
ership, there is no national and no
federal leadership in the United
States,” said Ricardo Hausmann,
director of the Growth Lab at Har-
deaths are falling short,” Ecuador’s
president, Lenín Moreno, said in a
public address on April 2. “The re-
ality always overtakes the number
of tests and the speed of attention”
of medical services, he said.
There has been a surge of infec-
tions in the province that includes
Ecuador’s business capital, Guaya-
quil, where residents are thought to
have brought the virus home after
visiting Spain.
In Guayaquil, fatalities during
the first two weeks of April were
eight times higher than usual, the
data indicates — a far greater rise
than that of New York City, where
fatalities were four times higher in
recent weeks.
Within weeks of the first case be-
ing identified in Guayaquil, hospi-
tals were overflowing and burial
systems collapsed under over-
whelming demand, leaving dead
bodies to pile in the streets and
pushing families to bury loved ones
in coffins made of cardboard.
While the images shocked Latin
America and the world, the true
scale of the crisis has largely been
obscured by the government’s lim-
ited ability to determine who has
the virus, a situation exacerbated
by global shortages of tests and
other materials, said Cynthia Vi-
teri, Guayaquil’s mayor.
“We will never know what the
real number is, because there are
no tests,” Ms. Viteri said.
Treating a coronavirus patient at the Brooklyn Hospital Center. Left, collecting blood to test for anti-
bodies in Munich. The pandemic has shaken long-held assumptions about U.S. exceptionalism.
vard’s Center for International De-
velopment. “In some sense this is
the failure of leadership of the U.S.
in the U.S.”
The contrast between how the
United States and Germany re-
sponded to the virus is particularly
striking.
While Chancellor Angela Merkel
has been criticized for not taking a
forceful enough leadership role in
Europe, Germany is being praised
for a near-textbook response to the
pandemic, at least by Western
standards. That is thanks to a ro-
bust public health care system, but
also a strategy of mass testing and
trusted and effective political lead-
ership.
Ms. Merkel has done what Mr.
Trump has not. She has been clear
and honest about the risks with vot-
ers and swift in her response. She
has rallied all 16 state governors
behind her. A trained physicist, she
has followed scientific advice and
learned from best practice else-
where.
Not long ago, Ms. Merkel was
considered a spent force, having
announced that this would be her
last term. Now her approval rat-
ings are at 80 percent.
“She has the mind of a scientist
and the heart of a pastor’s daugh-
ter,” Mr. Garton Ash said.
Mr. Trump, in a hurry to restart
the economy in an election year,
has appointed a panel of business
executives to chart a course out of
the lockdown.
Ms. Merkel, like everyone, would
like to find a way out, too, but this
week she warned Germans to re-
In early April, the government
created a task force to deal with the
precipitous climb in the number of
dead bodies that needed attention
in Guayaquil. At the peak of the cri-
sis, the team collected and autho-
rized the burial of five times as
many bodies than would normally
be buried in the city on any given
day.
The wave of deaths is all the
more disturbing for being impossi-
ble to explain. There is no obvious
A count 15 times
higher than what the
government reported.
reason for Ecuador to be devastat-
ed far more than other countries.
Its population is relatively young,
and most people live in rural areas,
both factors that should reduce the
risk, said Jenny Garcia, a demogra-
pher who studies Latin America at
the Institut National d’Études Dé-
mographiques in France.
That mystery is reflected in the
pandemic’s uneven consequences
around the world, raising questions
no one has been able to answer. Are
some places just lucky? Do un-
known local factors lead to dra-
matic differences?
main cautious. She is listening to
the advice of a multidisciplinary
panel of 26 academics from Ger-
many’s national academy of sci-
ence. The panel includes not just
medical experts and economists
but also behavioral psychologists,
education experts, sociologists,
philosophers and constitutional ex-
perts.
“You need a holistic approach to
this crisis,” said Gerald Haug, the
academy’s president, who chairs
the German panel. “Our politicians
get that.”
A climatologist, Mr. Haug used to
do research at Columbia Univer-
sity in New York.
The United States has some of
the world’s best and brightest
minds in science, he said. “The dif-
ference is, they’re not being lis-
tened to.”
“It’s a tragedy,” he added.
Some cautioned that the final
history of how countries fare after
the pandemic is still a long way
from being written.
A pandemic is a very specific
kind of stress test for political sys-
tems, said Mr. Garton Ash, the his-
tory professor. The military bal-
ance of power has not shifted at all.
The United States remains the
world’s largest economy. And it
was entirely unclear what global
region would be best equipped to
kick-start growth after a deep re-
cession.
“All of our economies are going
to face a terrible test,” he said. “No
one knows who will come out
stronger at the end.”
There is another wild card in the
Medical workers in Guayaquil
and local residents who have lost
their loved ones described the de-
spair that washed over the city dur-
ing the peak of the epidemic in
early April. The virus spread
through the usually bustling port
city of three million with bewilder-
ing speed, hitting the plush subur-
ban gated community of Sam-
borondón and the working-class
district of Febres Cordero particu-
larly hard.
“I fall asleep with anxiety, not be-
cause I fear infection — I actually
don’t think about it — but because
of the overload,” said Dr. Castillo,
who works in an intensive care unit
in Samborondón.
The spike in deaths caused chaos
and anger outside hospitals and
morgues, as grieving families
struggled to recover the bodies of
family members or to collect their
death certificates. In the city’s
poorer neighborhoods, some resi-
dents said they had to wait for up to
six days in the 90-degree heat for
emergency services to collect the
bodies of deceased relatives and
neighbors.
Darío Figueroa, a handyman,
said he dressed in a homemade
protective suit made of garbage
bags and spent nearly 12 hours
searching for his mother’s body in
the overflowing morgue of Guaya-
quil’s Guasmo Sur hospital in late
March.
VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
short term, Mr. Moïsi pointed out.
The United States has an election
in November. That, and the after-
math of the deepest economic cri-
sis since the 1930s, might also af-
fect the course of history.
The Great Depression gave rise
to America’s New Deal. Maybe the
coronavirus will lead the United
States to embrace a stronger public
safety net and develop a national
consensus for more accessible
health care, Mr. Moïsi suggested.
“Europe’s social democratic sys-
tems are not only more human,
they leave us better prepared and
fit to deal with a crisis like this than
the more brutal capitalistic system
in the United States,” Mr. Moïsi
said.
The current crisis, some fear,
could act like an accelerator of his-
tory, speeding up a decline in influ-
ence of both the United States and
Europe.
“Sometime in 2021 we come out
of this crisis and we will be in 2030,”
said Mr. Moïsi. “There will be more
Asia in the world and less West.”
Mr. Garton Ash said that the
United States should take an ur-
gent warning from a long line of
empires that rose and fell.
“To a historian it’s nothing new,
that’s what happens,” he said. “It’s
a very familiar story in world his-
tory that after a certain amount of
time a power declines.”
“You accumulate problems, and
because you’re such a strong play-
er, you can carry these dysfunc-
tionalities for a long time,” he add-
ed. “Until something happens and
you can’t anymore.”
There were hundreds of decom-
posing bodies stacked in piles, he
said, as if they were sacks of pota-
toes or rice.
“The reek was insufferable,” he
said. “The morgue was packed, as
were the corridors — they were
very long, and filled with corpses.
The waiting room was filled with
corpses.”
Mr. Figueroa said he finally bur-
ied his mother five days after her
death from respiratory symptoms.
She died on arrival to the hospital
without being tested for the virus.
A national lockdown ordered by
the government in mid-March ap-
pears to be bearing fruit, as official
infection rates have stabilized.
Deaths also fell sharply in Guaya-
quil last week. Official figures show
128 died on April 15 in Guayas, the
province that includes Guayaquil.
That’s down from 614 on April 1.
Under pressure from business
groups, Mr. Moreno, the president,
said this week he’s considering re-
laxing the lockdown and allowing
some industries to go back to work.
The news was greeted with anxiety
in Guayaquil, where many resi-
dents are torn between a desire to
return to work and fear of reliving
the chaos of the past weeks.
“The pandemic is not over,” said
Gina Mendoza, a Guayaquil nurse
who has recently recovered from
coronavirus. “We are scared of
what could happen.”

Tracking an Outbreak Global Response
BRITAIN
Secretive Scientific Panel Guides Halting Policies as Deaths Pile Up
From Page A1
government. “I don’t know, be-
cause I don’t know what the ad-
vice is, and there isn’t the freedom
for the scientists to tell the public
what their advice is.”
Professor King, who counseled
Prime Minister Tony Blair on the
foot-and-mouth disease that in-
fected British farm animals in
2001, said there was no justifica-
tion for the government to with-
hold either the advisory group’s
membership or the minutes of its
meetings. Doing so, he said,
eroded public trust in the govern-
ment, especially given the bewil-
dering twist and turns in its re-
sponse.
It also raises questions about an
academic group that ought to be a
point of pride for Britain: the
country’s best scientific minds, in
fields from epidemiology to be-
havioral science, assembled from
cutting-edge labs at Cambridge,
Oxford, Imperial College and the
London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.
“The names are likely to come
out at some stage,” said David Lid-
ington, who served as a deputy to
Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, The-
resa May. He warned that the gov-
ernment’s lack of disclosure
would only cause more headaches
later. “There is the risk that if
names leak out after a time it be-
comes a great shock-horror,” he
said, adding that it would be better
to make a virtue of transparency.
Even now, outside scientists
and doctors are second-guessing
the advice of these unnamed au-
thorities.
Why, for example, did SAGE
recommend less stringent social
distancing measures on March 9,
when France and Ireland were
banning large events and order-
ing lockdowns, and there was am-
ple evidence from Italy of the epi-
demic’s rapid and lethal spread?
(The unusual disclosure came in a
report the government posted
about the predicted effects of vari-
ous social distancing measures.)
Why in late February did a sub-
group of SAGE experts underesti-
mate the percentage of people
who would have to be hospitalized
as a result of contracting the virus,
and why did their models under-
Sheri Fink contributed reporting
from New York. Anna Joyce con-
tributed research from Dublin.
ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT
Taking (Most) Protests Off the Streets
This article is by Vivian Wang,
Maria Abi-Habib and Vivian Yee.
HONG KONG — Tear gas no
longer chokes Hong Kong’s sky-
scrapers, while protesters’ tents in
downtown Beirut have been dis-
mantled. In Delhi, the odd plastic
fork and tattered blanket are all
that remain of the sit-in that once
throttled one of the city’s busiest
highways.
Around the globe, the coro-
navirus pandemic has stilled the
anti-establishment protests that
erupted last year, bringing months
of marches, rallies and riots to a
sudden halt. Now, like everything
else in the world, the protests face
the unanswerable question of what
happens next.
How long the pandemic lasts,
and how governments and activ-
ists respond, will dictate whether
the interruption represents a fleet-
ing pause, a moment of metamor-
phosis, or an unceremonious end
for some of the most widespread
mass mobilizations in recent his-
tory.
The challenges are apparent.
Millions of protesters are hunkered
down at home, hemmed in by
sweeping quarantines and fears for
their own health. The daily burden
of acquiring face masks or food
overshadows debates about cor-
ruption and abuse of power.
Almost every government has
restricted mass gatherings, osten-
sibly protecting public health but
potentially also constraining future
mobilization. Some have used the
outbreak to consolidate power or
arrest opponents.
But the pandemic’s economic
toll, as well as the crises of trust it
has inspired in many governments,
could fuel fresh outrage. Already,
people from Washington State to
Peru to Paris have defied lockdown
measures they say threaten their
jobs, housing and food supplies.
Protesters have also found new
ways to express their discontent.
Chilean activists have projected
Vivian Wang reported from Hong
Kong, Maria Abi-Habib from Los
Angeles, and Vivian Yee from
Beirut, Lebanon. Reporting was
contributed by Hwaida Saad from
Beirut; Sameer Yasir from Delhi;
John Bartlett from Santiago,
Chile; Julie Turkewitz from Bo-
gotá, Colombia; José María León
Cabrera from Quito, Ecuador;
María Silvia Trigo from Tarija, Bo-
livia; Declan Walsh from Cairo;
and Alissa Rubin from Baghdad.
estimate the speed at which the
pathogen spread?
Why did those scientists agree
to classify the risk level of the con-
tagion to the public as “moderate,”
even after weeks of evidence that
it was being transmitted between
humans in China?
Why, after Imperial College
London published a frightening
study on March 16 that projected
up to 500,000 deaths if Britain did
not act more aggressively to curb
the virus, did Mr. Johnson wait an-
other full week to close nonessen-
tial shops and order people to stay
in their homes?
“Political decisions are often
framed as following the best sci-
entific advice,” said Connor
Rochford, a physician and former
consultant at McKinsey & Com-
pany. “But science is nothing
more than a normative claim
about how we ought to make a de-
cision. These are best-guess esti-
mates.”
Some said the frequent refer-
ences of Mr. Johnson and his aides
to the scientists should be a warn-
ing sign. If, as is likely, the govern-
ment’s handling of the crisis is
scrutinized in a future parliamen-
tary inquiry, officials are likely to
justify their actions by saying
they were listening to the experts.
“It has become a shield for
them,” said Devi Sridhar, director
of the global health governance
program at Edinburgh University.
“If things go off, you can always
say, ‘Well, it was the experts who
told us.’ ”
The government has deflected
pressure to identify the group’s
members or how many there are
by noting that Patrick Vallance,
the current chief scientific adviser
and the chairman of the group,
regularly appears in public at
news conferences. The govern-
ment also posts online brief re-
ports from some of SAGE’s sub-
groups, and the data that go into
its models.
In a recent letter to Parliament,
Professor Vallance said ano-
nymity protected the security of
scientists and shielded them
“from lobbying and other forms of
unwanted influence which may
hinder their ability to give impar-
tial advice.” He added that people
were free to disclose their mem-
bership.
One member who has —
Jeremy Farrar, an infectious dis-
ease specialist who is the director
of Wellcome Trust — acknowl-
images of crowds onto empty
streets. In Hong Kong, a union of
medical workers, born out of the
pro-democracy protests, went on
strike to criticize the government’s
outbreak response. Worldwide,
people have organized online work-
shops, banged pots and pans and
organized socially distanced ral-
lies.
“It is a rest time, but it’s defi-
nitely not the end of the move-
ment,” said Isaac Cheng, a student
leader of Demosisto, a prominent
Hong Kong pro-democracy group.
The Hong Kong protests were
among the first to feel the chilling
effects of the virus.
The protests began in June, to
oppose a bill that would have al-
lowed extraditions from Hong
Kong to mainland China. They soon
Government limits
may give new life to
existing grievances.
spiraled into some of the largest in
Hong Kong’s history, with millions
marching to denounce police bru-
tality and Beijing’s growing influ-
ence over the city.
But in January, as news spread
of a mysterious virus in China,
many grew leery of crowds. The
freeze became official in March,
when officials banned public gath-
erings of more than four people.
Since then, police have arrested at-
tendees of sporadic protests.
“What can we do?” said Max
Chung, an activist who was ar-
rested last July after organizing a
protest of hundreds of thousands of
people. “When the time is right, of
course I will organize another pro-
test. But it is impossible right now.”
A combination of top-down man-
dates and grass-roots hesitation
has paralyzed protests elsewhere.
In Algeria, twice-weekly street
protests that roiled the country for
more than a year dried up in
March, as protesters agreed to fo-
cus on fighting the virus — a deci-
sion solidified by the country’s new
ban on public demonstrations.
As awareness of the virus spread
in Beirut, protesters at first wore
masks to chant against corruption
and religious sectarianism. But
they dispersed in the face of a na-
tionwide lockdown, and last month,
security forces dismantled en-
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Britain’s Parliament. The government’s scientific advisory group, SAGE, is largely anonymous.
edged the limitations of the sys-
tem when he recently told the
BBC that the New and Emerging
Respiratory Virus Threats Advi-
sory Group, which advises SAGE,
underestimated the threat of the
contagion in March.
“The U.K.,” Dr. Farrar added, “is
likely to be certainly one of the
worst, if not the worst, affected
countries in Europe.”
Another member who has be-
come a household name, and a
source of scrutiny for his eye-wa-
tering statements, is Neil Fergu-
son, an epidemiologist at Imperial
College London. His team of mod-
elers produced the March 16 re-
port that prompted Downing
Street to impose a lockdown. (it
was also influential at the White
House, which embraced social
distancing.)
Professor Ferguson, who col-
laborates with the World Health
Organization and has advised
other countries on how to deal
with epidemics, later came down
with symptoms of the virus him-
self. In late March, testifying be-
fore Parliament from self-isola-
tion in his house, he generated
more headlines when he said that
Britain could keep its death toll
under 20,000 if it stuck with strict
social distancing.
Professor Ferguson did not re-
campments where protesters had
slept, held teach-ins and danced to
revolutionary anthems.
Attempts to defy the restrictions
have met backlash from not only
the government but also allies. Af-
ter opponents of an anti-Muslim
law in India said they would contin-
ue protesting during lockdown,
even supporters criticized them as
reckless.
The restrictions on gatherings
are not limited to countries that
had been fending off mass move-
ments, said Clément Voule, the
United Nations special rapporteur
on freedom of assembly and associ-
ation.
“I haven’t heard of any countries
currently where people are able to
exercise fully these rights,” he said.
While caution is necessary, pro-
testers’ natural fear of the virus
could lead them to accept or even
embrace restrictions with far-
reaching consequences, he said.
As streets and public squares
have emptied, governments have
already begun reintroducing some
of the very measures that set off
previous protests.
Ecuador had burst into violence
in October, when the president,
Lenín Moreno, announced the
elimination of a longstanding fuel
subsidy. At least 10 people died, and
Mr. Moreno backtracked. But on
Monday, the country’s energy min-
ister renewed a call to revoke it.
In Hong Kong, the police on Sat-
urday abruptly arrested 15 promi-
nent pro-democracy activists —
the biggest roundup of opposition
leaders in recent memory. The ar-
rests followed several weeks of un-
usually aggressive rhetoric from
the Chinese Communist Party as-
serting its control over Hong Kong,
a semiautonomous territory with
its own constitution.
Some Hong Kongers have been
particularly concerned by renewed
calls from Beijing for the city to en-
act antitreason and subversion
laws. A previous push to do so in
2003 failed after mass protests.
“This is the government’s plan:
to make people afraid, and when
the time comes that the movement
should be reigniting, there will be
less and less people coming out,”
said Mr. Cheng.
Samia Khan, an activist in India,
said she had already seen fractures
in the broad coalitions that sup-
ported protests there. Hundreds of
thousands of Indians, of all reli-
gions, had rallied against a law that
blatantly discriminated against
ply to requests to discuss his ad-
vice to the government or the de-
liberations of SAGE. But in an in-
terview with The New York Times
the day the March 16 report was
published, he laid out the choice
Britain faced: Manage the spread
of the virus in a way that min-
imized deaths but allowed a sig-
nificant percentage of the popula-
tion to become infected — a situa-
tion known as “herd immunity.”
Or tamp down transmission of the
virus by imposing a lockdown of
the kind the Chinese government
did in Wuhan. In the end, he said,
there was no choice but to take the
latter course.
“The U.K. has struggled in the
past few weeks in thinking about
how to handle this outbreak long
term,” he said. “We don’t have a
clear exit strategy, but we’re going
to have to suppress this virus,
frankly indefinitely, until we have
a vaccine. It’s a difficult position
for the world to be in.”
Until mid-March, Professor
Ferguson, Professor Vallance and
other scientists had appeared re-
ceptive to the case for “herd im-
munity.” Then, confronted with
new numbers that projected hos-
pitals would be overwhelmed with
patients and the death toll would
skyrocket, they pivoted to a sup-
pression strategy.
A 2019 protest site in Hong Kong was nearly empty last month.
Antigovernment protesters amid a lockdown Tuesday in Beirut.
Low-income workers evaded a police blockade Saturday in Peru.
Muslims.
But during the outbreak, ten-
sions between Muslims and Hin-
dus have risen, stoked by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s govern-
ment. Officials have blamed an out-
break at a Delhi mosque for
spreading the coronavirus in the
country, and some have suggested
that Muslims intentionally trans-
ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
What is unclear is the role
SAGE played in shifting the gov-
ernment’s thinking.
One of the few public docu-
ments that give a glimpse into its
deliberations — a March 9 report
assessing the potential impact of
social distancing measures — said
the group recommended “a com-
bination of individual home isola-
tion of symptomatic cases, house-
hold isolation and social distanc-
ing of the over 70s.”
That is far short of the lockdown
measures Britain ultimately
adopted. It did not, for example,
include a ban on large gatherings,
like concerts and sporting events,
in part because behavioral scien-
tists doubted there would be
enough compliance with the bans
to reduce the spread of the virus.
Nor did it include a recommen-
dation for widespread testing and
contact tracing of people who had
contracted the virus — a policy
the government had pursued with
some success during the earliest
days of the outbreak in Britain.
“I’m guessing there was a de-
bate between containment and
mitigation, and they decided to go
with Option B,” Professor Sridhar
said. But she added there was no
way to be sure until the delibera-
tions were made public.
Among the mysteries of SAGE
LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS
RODRIGO ABD/ASSOCIATED PRESS
mitted the virus.
“This government is lucky,” said
Ms. Khan, who helped organize a
sit-in that blocked a main Delhi
highway. “It has shut down the big-
gest challenge it faced since it was
elected, by using the excuse of a
pandemic.”
But aggressive government re-
strictions bring their own risks —
N A9
is the makeup of the group. Pro-
fessor Vallance said it includes
representatives from more than
20 institutions, with expertise
ranging from molecular evolution
to microbiology. There are four ex-
pert groups, with anywhere from
five to 45 members, whose advice
is funneled into SAGE. Some sci-
entists, like Professor Ferguson,
serve on multiple panels.
But outside experts questioned
whether it has enough represen-
tation from fields like public
health and logistics. Britain’s lack
of masks, gloves and other protec-
tive gear has become another
weak link in its response.
Some experts also said the sci-
entists suffered from a lack of in-
dependence. While Professor Val-
lance has begun to show some
daylight with the government —
he recently said SAGE would re-
examine the government’s deci-
sion not to advise people to wear
masks — his regular public ap-
pearances next to Mr. Johnson
and other cabinet ministers have
made him look too much like an
agent of the government rather
than an independent adviser, crit-
ics say.
On Thursday, the government
said it would consider the latest
scientific advice on masks and it
seemed likely to encourage their
use — a decision complicated by
the shortage of masks for people
who work in hospitals and nursing
homes.
Some of SAGE’s internal de-
bates play out in competing re-
search studies published by their
authors. A few days after Imperial
College released its dire projec-
tions about the deadliness of the
virus, a team at Oxford University
published a study that considered
a scenario in which more than half
of the population might already
have been infected — a theory
that, if valid, would argue for a less
draconian response.
Scientists, of course, often dis-
agree and change their minds,
based on new data. To some, that
is yet another argument for lifting
the veil on the advisory group.
“The idea that a small group of
experts can never make a mistake
or miss out on any information is
never right,” said Sarah Wollas-
ton, a former chairwoman of the
House of Commons Health Select
Committee. “But you can’t chal-
lenge the advice if other experts
can’t see what they are looking
at.”
namely, giving new life to existing
grievances and creating new ones.
Already, thousands of people
around the world have defied lock-
down orders to protest their gov-
ernments’ responses.
Violent clashes erupted in the
low-income, immigrant-heavy sub-
urbs of Paris this week, as resi-
dents denounced what they called
heavy-handed, racially biased en-
forcement of France’s lockdown.
Hundreds of low-income Peruvi-
ans tried to leave Lima on Monday
for their rural hometowns, and
were tear-gassed by police.
Iraqis have returned to the
streets to decry the shortage of jobs
and income that has been exacer-
bated by stay-at-home orders.
Some working-class protesters
whose wages have disappeared re-
turned to crowd the streets over
the last week in one Lebanese city,
while protesters demonstrated in
their cars and on foot in multiple
cities across the country.
Across the United States, con-
servative activists, encouraged by
President Trump, have rallied
against lockdown orders, despite
pleas from public health experts
and medical workers.
Dominga Sotomayor, a director
from Santiago, Chile, has organized
a group that broadcasts protest-re-
lated films and town-hall-style
meetings on social media to try to
sustain the momentum of the un-
rest that broke out there in October
over a proposed subway fare in-
crease.
“The pandemic has been a diffi-
cult period for Chile, because
there’s a real sense of the move-
ment’s fragility,” she said. “So we
have had to take it online.”
Even if some of the new, pan-
demic-inspired protests are not di-
rectly related to previous ones,
they may energize those move-
ments in the future. In particular,
an extended global recession, on
top of existing anger, could propel
such protests.
In Hong Kong, the wariness
about crowds that pervaded the
city has started to fade, as new in-
fections have hovered in the single
digits for more than a week.
Preparations for new protests
are already underway. A group that
organized many of last year’s ral-
lies in Hong Kong said on Sunday
that it was seeking police permis-
sion to hold a July 1 march.
Ventus Lau, another march or-
ganizer, said protesters were using
the unexpected reprieve to re-
charge and strategize. Weeks of be-
ing cooped up at home, he added,
had also left many eager for action.
“In Hong Kong, I feel more peo-
ple are already trying to get out of
their homes than before,” he said.
A10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak The Economy
FLORIDA
Where Unemployment Is Hard to File, Slow to Process and Low Paying
By PATRICIA MAZZEI
and SABRINA TAVERNISE
MIAMI — After Ernst Virgile
lost his job at the Fort Lauderdale
airport, he sat up late at the com-
puter in his living room night after
night, trying to apply for unem-
ployment, refreshing his browser
again and again while his wife
slept.
He worried about their three
children, and car payments, and
the house he and his wife, who
also lost her job at the airport on
the same day, worked so hard to
buy in 2018. He sometimes got in
the car and drove around by him-
self to be able to worry without
having to hide it.
On April 3, after more than a
week of trying, Mr. Virgile, 37, was
finally able to get his claim lodged
in Florida’s overwhelmed system.
But he has yet to see a penny of
unemployment compensation.
“My job is to not let them see,”
he said of his children. “I have to
stay strong. But I need to pay the
water and electric. What am I go-
ing to do? We don’t have anything
saved.”
New unemployment figures re-
leased on Thursday showed that
another 4.4 million people filed un-
employment claims last week
amid the coronavirus crisis,
bringing the five-week total to
more than 26 million.
Many states are scrambling to
process an avalanche of jobless
claims, struggling with over-
loaded websites and unanswered
phones. But Florida has emerged
as one of the slowest in the nation.
Hundreds of thousands of work-
ers — many from Florida’s once-
booming service industry — have
been waiting for weeks for a
check. It has taken some as long
as that to file. As the website be-
came unusable under the weight
of the traffic, the state agreed this
month to accept paper applica-
tions, a tacit acknowledgment
that the system was broken. Flor-
ida’s breakdown became a na-
tional symbol of distress, when
footage of a snaking line for those
applications outside the public li-
brary in Hialeah, a blue-collar city
outside Miami, went viral.
The debacle has become an em-
barrassment for Gov. Ron DeSan-
tis, a Republican, who has had to
repeatedly address the shortcom-
ings. He called the system “cum-
bersome” last week and acknowl-
edged that only 34,000 of 850,000
pending claims had been paid, a
number that rose over the past
week to 117,000.
The governor appointed an un-
employment czar and signed ex-
ecutive orders waiving some re-
quirements to ease the traffic on
the website.
But the fixes follow what ex-
perts say has been an intentional
weakening of the unemployment
system over a decade, aimed at re-
Patricia Mazzei reported from Mi-
ami, and Sabrina Tavernise from
Washington. Emily Badger and
Alicia Parlapiano contributed re-
porting from Washington.
THE SHUTDOWN
States Drowning Beneath
Deluge of Job Loss Claims
From Page A1
given no timetable for when bene-
fits might be paid.
Reports of delays, interruptions
and glitches continue to come in
from workers who have been un-
able to get into the system, from
others who filed for regular state
benefits but have yet to receive
them, and from applicants who
say they have been unfairly
turned down and unable to ap-
peal.
Florida has paid just 17 percent
of the claims filed since March 15,
according to the state’s Depart-
ment of Economic Opportunity.
“Speed matters” when it comes
to government assistance, said
Carl Tannenbaum, chief econo-
mist at Northern Trust. Speed can
mean the difference between a
company’s survival and its failure,
or between making a home mort-
gage payment and facing foreclo-
sure.
There is “a race between policy
and a pandemic,” Mr. Tannen-
baum said, and in many places, it
is clear that the response has been
“very uneven.”
Using data reported by the La-
bor Department for March 14 to
April 11, the Economic Policy In-
stitute, a liberal research group,
estimated that seven in 10 appli-
cants were receiving benefits.
That left seven million other job-
less workers who had filed claims
but were still waiting for relief.
States manage their own unem-
ployment insurance programs
and set the level of benefits and el-
igibility rules. Now they are re-
sponsible for administering fed-
Tara Siegel Bernard contributed
reporting.
ducing taxes on employers, that
has left Florida particularly ill-
equipped to handle the crisis. The
state pays one of the lowest levels
of benefit in the nation: The maxi-
mum is just $275 a week.
“Florida is a terrible state to be
an unemployed person,” said Mi-
chele Evermore, an unemploy-
ment insurance expert at the Na-
tional Employment Law Project in
Washington. “It’s hard to get in.
Once you do, it’s easy to get dis-
qualified. The benefit level is way
below average. And that was be-
fore the crisis.”
Mr. DeSantis said that easing
the benefits gridlock is his top pri-
ority, and has blamed the record
number of claims for the break-
down. “Not nearly enough” appli-
cations have been processed, he
said.
The governor inherited a web-
site and benefit restrictions from
his predecessor, Rick Scott, that
saved the state and employees
money — and kept the benefit rate
low — when the economy was
chugging along. But the system
has proved unworkable in a crisis.
Data for precise national com-
parisons will not be out for some
time. But as a measure of the
state’s sluggishness, Ms. Ever-
more pointed out that its unem-
ployment trust fund, a kind of
eral emergency benefits that pro-
vide payments for an additional 13
weeks, cover previously ineligible
workers and add $600 to the regu-
lar weekly check.
So far, 44 states have begun to
send the $600 supplement to job-
less workers who qualified under
state rules, the Labor Department
said. Only two — Kentucky and
Minnesota — have extended fed-
eral benefits to workers who have
used up their state allotment.
With government phones and
websites clogged and drop-in cen-
ters closed, legal aid lawyers
around the country are fielding
complaints from people who say
they don’t know where else to
turn.
“Our office has received thou-
sands of calls,” said John Tirpak, a
lawyer with the Unemployment
Law Project, a nonprofit group in
Washington.
People with disabilities and
nonnative English speakers have
had particular problems, he said.
Even those able to file initially
say they have had trouble getting
back into the system as required
weekly to recertify their claims.
Colin Harris of Marysville,
Wash., got a letter on March 31
from the state’s unemployment in-
surance office saying he was eligi-
ble for benefits after being laid off
as a quality inspector at Safran
Cabin, an aerospace company. He
submitted claims two weeks in a
row and heard nothing. When he
submitted his next claim, he was
told that he had been disqualified.
He has tried calling more than 200
times since then, with no luck.
“And that’s still where I am
right now,” he said, “unable to talk
to somebody to find out what the
issue is.” If he had not received a
ANGEL VALENTIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
bank account for unemployment
funds, contains more money now
than it did on March 1, while many
other states are in danger of run-
ning out in a few weeks.
“Florida’s fund has gone up,”
she said. “This means benefits
aren’t getting to people in their
time of need.”
The situation is urgent. State
Representative Anna V. Eska-
mani, an Orlando Democrat, said
her office was trying to assist
some 800 people from across the
state who have reached out, des-
perate for help. Some contacts
come in via Instagram message.
“Somebody called me this
morning from Ormond Beach,”
Ms. Eskamani said. “I got an
email from someone in Panama
City last night. We’re just trying to
show up for everyone as best we
can.”
Some people have received two
weeks of benefits, Ms. Eskamani
said. But those successful cases
are few and far between.
A labor union representing
South Florida hotel and casino
workers, Unite Here Local 355,
said 98 percent of its 7,000 mem-
bers were out of work. “Virtually
none of our members have re-
ceived unemployment benefits,”
said Wendi Walsh, the union’s sec-
retary-treasurer.
JOVELLE TAMAYO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Colin Harris received a letter saying he was eligible for benefits, but was then told he had been dis-
qualified. Josalyn Taylor has been trying to resolve an issue with her claim since filing in mid-March.
$1,200 stimulus check from the
federal government, he said, he
would not have been able to make
his mortgage payment.
Last week’s tally of new claims
was lower than each of the previ-
ous three weeks. But millions of
additional claims are still ex-
pected to stream in from around
the country over the next month,
while hiring remains piddling.
States are frantically trying to
catch up. California, which has
processed 2.7 million claims over
the last four weeks, opened a sec-
ond call center on Monday. New
York, which has deployed 3,100
people to answer the telephone,
said this week that it had reduced
the backlog that accumulated by
April 8 to 4,305 from 275,000.
Florida had the largest increase
in initial claims last week, al-
though the state figures, unlike
the national total, are not season-
ally adjusted. That increase could
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
Ernst Virgile, left, filed his
unemployment claim in early
April but has yet to receive any
money. Gov. Ron DeSantis of
Florida, above, has expressed
exasperation with the system.
Many have been locked out
when they do not remember a PIN
they created years ago. Calling
operators to reset it results in long
waits and disconnected calls.
José Garrido, 41, a former door-
man at the Fontainebleau hotel in
Miami Beach, filed his application
on March 22. But he has yet to re-
ceive any benefits.
“I’m short on rent,” said Mr. Ga-
rrido, a father of two. “Now I’m go-
ing to have to pay two months to
F.P.L.,” referring to Florida Power
& Light. “Food is so much more
expensive. I have two children.
We are not going to have any
health insurance.”
“I’m terrified,” he said.
The current unemployment
system in Florida dates to 2011,
when the State Legislature and
Gov. Scott, a Republican, enacted
a series of major changes. It was
not long after the Great Reces-
sion, and the federal government
had increased unemployment
taxes on businesses. In response,
the Republican-controlled Legis-
lature set out to reduce that bene-
fit to be able to bring taxes back
down.
Floridians, who once could file
by phone, now had to file online,
and faced a set of new require-
ments that made the process of es-
tablishing eligibility one of the
most onerous in the nation, Ms.
Evermore said. The online system
was hard to use, offered very little
customer service and limited ac-
cess for Spanish speakers. A cum-
bersome skills test had appeared.
People had to prove, on a compli-
cated online form, that they had
applied to at least five jobs a week.
Benefits went to as few as 12
weeks from 26.
The result was disastrous for
be a sign that jobless workers fi-
nally got access to the system af-
ter delays, but it is impossible to
assess how many potential appli-
cants have still failed to get in.
The 10 states that have started
making Pandemic Unemploy-
ment Assistance payments to
workers who would not normally
qualify under state guidelines are
Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Ken-
tucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas
and Utah.
Pain is everywhere, but it is
most widespread among the most
vulnerable.
In a survey that the Pew Re-
search Center released on Tues-
day, 52 percent of low-income
households — below $37,500 a
year for a family of three — said
someone in the household had lost
a job because of the coronavirus,
compared with 32 percent of up-
per-income ones (with earnings
unemployed Floridians. By 2015,
just 39 percent of workers who ap-
plied for benefits ever received a
first payment, compared with 68
percent nationally. That number
has not changed much, Ms. Ever-
more said. Even if someone is
lucky enough to get a first pay-
ment, proving eligibility after that
is difficult. The number of workers
who were disqualified because
they failed to prove they were ac-
tively seeking work more than tri-
pled.
When the virus hit, Florida was
at the bottom of the pack. Just 11
percent of unemployed Floridians
were receiving unemployment in-
surance in 2019, compared with
about 52 percent of unemployed
people in Massachusetts and 57
percent in New Jersey, according
to data from the Department of
Labor. Florida was the second-
worst in the country last year by a
hair, just after North Carolina.
Mr. DeSantis said last week that
the state was slow to process
claims before the virus.
“If you applied in January, I
mean, it was a cumbersome
process — it would take several
weeks,” he said. “But when the un-
employment rate is 3 percent, it’s
a little bit different than what we
have now.”
This week, Mr. DeSantis
sounded more exasperated:
“Look, this system, the fact that
the state paid $77 million for this
thing — it’s a jalopy.”
State Senator Joe Gruters of
Sarasota, chairman of the Repub-
lican Party of Florida, went fur-
ther in a Twitter post earlier this
month: “$77 million? Someone
should go to jail over that.”
Mr. Scott, now the state’s junior
senator, has taken the brunt of the
criticism for the troubled system.
Asked about Mr. DeSantis’s blunt
As of last week, only
34,000 of 850,000
claims were paid.
assessment, a spokesman for Mr.
Scott said in a statement on
Wednesday that the former gov-
ernor did not “have time for dumb
political squabbles.” Mr. Scott has
noted that Deloitte Consulting, the
well-connected contractor hired
to build the website, was chosen
by his predecessor, Charlie Crist.
Mr. Scott ran on jobs after the
recession, a period during which
Florida paid so many claims that
it wiped out the unemployment
trust fund. The reforms he en-
acted were intended to adapt to
economic conditions, raising over-
all payments when unemploy-
ment was high and jobs scarce but
bringing them down in boom
times.
Then there was the glitchy web-
site. State audits in 2015, 2016 and
2019 found a slew of problems, but
neither Mr. Scott nor Mr. DeSantis
BRANDON THIBODEAUX FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
over $112,600). Forty-two percent
of families in the middle have been
affected as well.
Those without a college educa-
tion have taken a disproportionate
hit, as have Hispanics and Afri-
can-Americans, the survey found.
An outsize share of jobless
claims have also been filed by
women, according to an analysis
from the Fuller Project, a nonprof-
it journalism organization that fo-
cuses on women.
Josalyn Taylor, 31, learned that
she was out of a job on March 16. “I
clocked in at 3 o’clock, and by 3:30
my boss called me and told me we
were going to shut down for three
weeks,” said Ms. Taylor, an assist-
ant manager at Cicis Pizza in
Galveston, Tex. The restaurant
has yet to reopen.
Two days later, she applied for
unemployment insurance, but she
kept receiving a message that a
claim was already active for her
did much to fix them, and the trou-
bles persisted.
To deal with the crush of appli-
cations that began in mid-March,
the Florida Department of Eco-
nomic Opportunity installed 100
new servers and promised to re-
assign 2,000 employees from
other state agencies to enter data
from paper applications. The de-
partment built a makeshift portal
to accommodate more applicants,
but those applications must still
be migrated to the original sys-
tem.
Another portal, for gig workers
and independent contractors who
now qualify for federal benefits, is
pending. Secretary Jonathan R.
Satter of the Department of Man-
agement Services, whom Mr. De-
Santis tapped last week to oversee
the unemployment morass, said
on April 16 that the portal would
debut in a week to 10 days.
Among the requirements
waived by Mr. DeSantis is that ap-
plicants show they have been job
hunting, because there are so few
jobs to be had. But the website has
not immediately reflected that
and other changes. And the gover-
nor says he lacks the executive
authority to raise the maximum
benefit of $275 a week. (A new fed-
eral relief law will augment that; it
pays $600 per week on top of state
benefits.)
“We’re the most Scrooge-like
state in the country on benefits,”
said State Senator José Javier Ro-
dríguez, a Miami Democrat. “So
coming into the crisis, we already
had this system that was the most
anti-worker system there was.”
The Department of Economic
Opportunity has not said if claims
would be retroactive to the date of
every applicant’s layoff. Claims
filed early on in the crisis were ex-
cluded from a waiver that
scrapped the “wait week” typical-
ly required before people can get
their first benefit checks.
“We want to maximize the
benefits for them,” said Tiffany
Vause, a spokeswoman. “A lot of
that is going to be done on a case-
by-case basis.”
But for people waiting in their
homes, going weeks without in-
come, the delay is becoming dire.
Esther Ortega, a laid-off stadium
bartender, filed a paper applica-
tion earlier this month after trying
frantically for days to file online.
She could have gotten it for free at
the Hialeah public library but did
not want to wait in line and possi-
bly bring the virus home to her 11-
year-old daughter and her aunt
and stepfather, who are both in
their 70s, so she paid to print it at a
nearby store.
She has not seen any benefits
yet.
“Every day at 6 a.m., believe
me, I open my app on my phone to
check my bank account,” said Ms.
Ortega, who is 41 and became a
widow in February. “It’s very frus-
trating. It’s just energy draining.
Like, I don’t know what the gover-
nor is waiting for. I’m a single
mother. Why are you holding on to
the money?”
Unemployed workers
need funds quickly, or
a hole only gets deeper.
Social Security number and that
she could not file. She has tried to
clear up the matter hundreds of
times — online, by phone and
through the Texas Workforce
Commission’s site on Facebook —
with no luck.
“I used my stimulus check to
pay my light bill, and I’m using
that to keep groceries and stuff in
the house,” said Ms. Taylor, who is
five months pregnant. “But other
than that, I don’t have any other
income, and I’m almost out of
money.”
The first wave of layoffs most
heavily whacked the restaurant,
travel, personal care, retail and
manufacturing industries, but the
damage has spread to a much
broader range of sectors.
At the online job site Indeed, for
example, postings for software
development jobs are down
nearly 30 percent from last year,
while listings for finance and
banking openings are down more
than 40 percent.
New layoffs are expected to
ease over the next couple of
months, but the damage to the
economy is likely to last much
longer. In a matter of weeks, the
shutdown has more than erased
10 years of net job gains — more
than 19 million jobs.
Health and education are going
to revive relatively quickly, said
Rick Rieder, chief investment offi-
cer for global fixed income at
BlackRock, but leisure and hospi-
tality are going to take a lot longer.
Over the past decade, the em-
ployment landscape has shifted
substantially as new types of jobs
have appeared and old categories
have disappeared. The U.S. econ-
omy, Mr. Rieder said, is “going to
go through another period of evo-
lution.”
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N A11

Tracking an Outbreak The Numbers

Comparing Death Rates of the Pandemic Across the U.S.

The virus has spread to all 50 states, hitting the Northeast especially hard. Regional
patterns reveal the challenges states face as they work to combat the virus.
204

The Northeast New York

79 deaths per 100,000
DEADLIEST DAY
805 deaths
New Jersey
57 deaths per 100,000 376
Connecticut
43 deaths per 100,000
Massachusetts
32 deaths per 100,000
This region has been the hardest hit in 4 deaths per 100,000 people
the entire country. New York State has 221
become the epicenter of the outbreak,
with 36 percent of all deaths in the 3
United States. Even after adjusting for
population size, the state still has the
2
highest fatality rate for coronavirus in
the nation.
The states in the Northeast account 1
for nearly two-thirds of fatalities in the
United States. Researchers suggest
that the virus began spreading in this STAY-AT-HOME ORDER March 22 March 21 March 23 March 24
region in mid-February, weeks before
the first confirmed case, and that a Washington, D.C. Rhode Island Pennsylvania Maryland
majority of cases have links to Europe, 18 deaths per 100,000 15 deaths 17 deaths per 100,000 19 deaths 13 deaths per 100,000 254 deaths 10 deaths per 100,000 68 deaths
not Asia.
2 deaths per 100,000 people

April 1 March 28 April 1 March 30

Delaware Vermont New Hampshire Maine
9 deaths per 100,000 10 deaths 6 deaths per 100,000 5 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 6 deaths 3 deaths per 100,000 4 deaths

March 24 March 25 March 27 April 2

West Virginia
2 deaths per 100,000 6 deaths

March 24

The West Washington

9 deaths per 100,000
DEADLIEST DAY
39 deaths
Colorado
9 deaths per 100,000 42 deaths
Nevada
6 deaths per 100,000 25 deaths
California
4 deaths per 100,000 109 deaths
Some of the earliest cases in the coun- 1 death per 100,000 people
try were diagnosed in this region,
which has also been the most success-
ful in mitigating the virus. California, STAY-AT-HOME ORDER March 23 March 26 April 1 March 19
Oregon and Washington, in fact, have
shipped ventilators to hot spots on the New Mexico Arizona Idaho Oregon
East Coast. 3 deaths per 100,000 8 deaths 3 deaths per 100,000 23 deaths 3 deaths per 100,000 6 deaths 2 deaths per 100,000 6 deaths
California, the most populous state in
the country, had nearly 600 direct
flights to China in January — more than
twice as many as New York State —
March 24 March 31 March 25 March 23
making it especially vulnerable to the
spread of the virus. Montana Alaska Utah Wyoming
Still, the state was the first to imple- 1 death per 100,000 3 deaths 1 death per 100,000 2 deaths 1 death per 100,000 5 deaths 1 death per 100,000 4 deaths
ment broad stay-at-home measures,
and has managed to keep its death toll
comparatively low, ranking 29th among
all 50 states and Washington, D.C., in
deaths per capita. March 28 March 28 No statewide stay-at-home order No statewide stay-at-home order
Late Tuesday, officials in Santa Clara Hawaii
County, Calif., announced that two
residents there had died of the coro- <1 death per 100,000 2 deaths
navirus in early February, shifting the
timeline of the virus’s spread across the
country much earlier than previously
believed. March 25

DEADLIEST DAY

The Midwest Michigan

28 deaths per 100,000
232 deaths

Several governors in the Midwest, 2 deaths per 100,000 people Illinois Indiana Ohio
which is home to multiple hot spots, 12 deaths per 100,000 130 deaths 10 deaths per 100,000 61 deaths 5 deaths per 100,000 53 deaths
have announced that they will coordi-
nate plans to reopen their economies. 1
Protesters in some of these states have
taken to the streets to demand that
governors loosen restrictions, even STAY-AT-HOME ORDER March 24 March 21 March 24 March 23
though public health experts warn that Wisconsin Missouri Kansas Minnesota
relaxing stay-at-home rules too soon
could lead to new waves of outbreaks. 4 deaths per 100,000 17 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 23 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 8 deaths 3 deaths per 100,000 19 deaths
In Illinois, the Chicago area has
emerged as a hot spot. The Cook
County Jail — one of the nation’s larg-
est — is among the largest single March 25 April 6 March 30 March 27
sources of infection in the country.
Michigan has some of the highest rates Iowa Nebraska North Dakota South Dakota
of infection and fatality in the country, 3 deaths per 100,000 11 deaths 2 deaths per 100,000 8 deaths 2 deaths per 100,000 3 deaths 1 death per 100,000 2 deaths
ranking third in coronavirus deaths and
seventh in total cases among the 50
states and Washington, D.C. Racial
disparities are also stark in Michigan, No statewide stay-at-home order No statewide stay-at-home order No statewide stay-at-home order No statewide stay-at-home order
where black residents make up just 14
percent of the population, but 40 per-
cent of virus deaths.

The South Louisiana

32 deaths per 100,000
DEADLIEST DAY
129 deaths
Most states in the South lagged behind 3 deaths per 100,000 people
the rest of the country in implementing
stay-at-home orders, with many waiting
until the end of March or early April to 2 Georgia Mississippi Florida
do so. These same states are now 8 deaths per 100,000 85 deaths 6 deaths per 100,000 14 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 72 deaths
poised to be among the earliest to loos- 1
en those very restrictions, even though
their populations have disproportionate
rates of underlying conditions that put STAY-AT-HOME ORDER March 23 April 3 April 3 April 3
people at a higher risk of dying of the
coronavirus. Oklahoma Kentucky Alabama Virginia
In Florida, a beach festival held in 4 deaths per 100,000 21 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 17 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 22 deaths 4 deaths per 100,000 41 deaths
early March was the source of dozens
of infections. Nearly a month later —
and after the official case count in Flor-
ida reached 7,000 — Gov. Ron DeSantis
issued a stay-at-home order. A quarter No statewide stay-at-home order March 26 April 4 March 30
of Florida’s population is older than 60, South Carolina Tennessee North Carolina Texas
the age group for whom the coro-
3 deaths per 100,000 12 deaths 3 deaths per 100,000 15 deaths 2 deaths per 100,000 30 deaths 2 deaths per 100,000 45 deaths
navirus is most deadly.
In Georgia, a funeral in the small city
of Albany became a super-spreader
event. Three counties near this city
have some of the highest per capita April 7 March 31 March 30 April 2
rates of infection outside of the New
York area. Arkansas
Many point to New Orleans’ failure to 1 death per 100,000 3 deaths
cancel Mardi Gras as a precipitating
factor in Louisiana’s outbreak. The
state ranks fifth in the country in
deaths and is home to numerous hot No statewide stay-at-home order
spot counties.
SOURCES: New York Times database of reports from state and local health agencies and hospitals. Dates for stay-at-home orders were assembled from state and local governments
and local news reports. Population estimates are as of July 2019, from the U.S. Census Bureau. NOTE: Data as of 12:30 a.m., April 23.
A12 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak New York City
Edward Gumbs making a delivery for God’s Love We Deliver last week in Queens, above. Mr. Gumbs received a bottle of hand sanitizer at the dispatch, above right.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Last Link in Food Chain Holds Strong for the Needy
New York City’s
pantries for
low-income residents
and meal-delivery
services for shut-ins
are dependent, now
more than ever, on
drivers who keep the
provisions moving.
By NIKITA STEWART
Edward Gumbs is nothing if not
essential. After equipping himself
each morning with a cup of green
tea, hand sanitizer, gloves and a
mask, Mr. Gumbs travels to
homes around the city to deliver
meals, like curried red pea soup
and puréed spinach minestrone.
His clients, as he calls them,
were already tethered to their
homes by age and disability. Now,
they are trapped inside them by
the deadly coronavirus.
“A lot of my clients don’t get to
interact with people unless it’s
me,” said Mr. Gumbs, 48, who
drove a school bus for 10 years be-
fore becoming a driver for God’s
Love We Deliver, which caters
mostly to older New Yorkers.
“Sometimes, they have no one to
talk to.”
His conversations with them
are shorter now, but just the sight
of him — a glimpse from behind a
window curtain, a peek through a
peephole, the brief yet friendly ex-
change as he drops off a bag — is
enough.
Herbert DeCordova, 91, a for-
mer chef and drummer, looks for-
ward to Mr. Gumbs’s twice-a-
week deliveries, when “all of a
sudden,” Mr. DeCordova said ex-
citedly, “the doorbell rings.”
Eric DeCordova, his son, said
his wife works at a hospital; fear-
ful of infecting his father, they
have not seen him as often as they
did before the pandemic. “This vi-
rus has torn us apart,” Eric De-
Cordova said.
Food — how to get it, how to de-
liver it, how to pay for it — has
emerged as one of the biggest is-
sues of the pandemic. Mayor Bill
de Blasio has appointed a food
czar. This month, the mayor and
the City Council announced the
city would give a $25 million emer-
gency grant to nonprofit food
providers to buy more goods.
Days later, Mr. de Blasio an-
nounced that the city would pour
another $170 million into a
broader food emergency effort, in-
cluding hiring 11,000 taxi and ride-
hailing drivers to deliver meals.
At the same time, the needy are
finding that many food pantries
and soup kitchens they are used to
visiting have closed, because their
volunteers, many of whom are re-
tirees, are staying home to avoid
becoming ill. About 40 percent of
800 sites supplied by City Harvest
and Food Bank for New York City
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Amir Muhammad ordered breakfast (a bacon, egg and cheese
sandwich) as he waited for a food bank to open, top. Mr. Mu-
hammad made a delivery to the Bronx River Houses, above.
have shut down, leading to longer
lines at the locations still open.
That has made people like Mr.
Gumbs who deliver the food to
pantries and to people stuck at
home more essential than ever.
Derrick Smalls, a driver who
delivers to pantries for City Har-
vest, counted up his stops in his
head. “Half my route is closed,” he
said.
Mr. Smalls, 30, began volunteer-
ing with the nonprofit when he
was a teenager; his father was an
office coordinator there. He
started working full time on his
21st birthday.
Mr. Smalls said he was witness-
ing a disruption that goes beyond
anything his father, now retired,
ever saw. “There were places,
maybe 100 people would be in
line,” he said. “Now, they’re serv-
ing 300, 400 people. If I have extra
food, I just go.”
Mr. Smalls picks up donated
food from restaurants and super-
Photographs by
GABRIELA BHASKAR
for The New York Times
markets and delivers to pantries
and soup kitchens, and he has got-
ten to know some of their owners
and workers.
Now he recognizes them by
their voices, muffled under face
masks, and by their eyes. They
are all wary of standing too close
but still welcome Mr. Smalls,
knowing people depend on their
food to survive.
Mr. Smalls does not linger. He
does not carry on small talk. “ ‘Hi’
and ‘bye,’ ” he said. “I’m more
scared because I have asthma.
I’m nervous because I take care of
my father. He’s elderly, too. He
goes to dialysis. I have to take care
of him.”
Amir Muhammad, a welter-
weight boxer, has latched onto
what is left of normalcy, stopping
to grab the breakfast of a New
York champion: a bacon, egg and
cheese sandwich with a slice of
turkey and a cranberry juice.
He relishes making his usual
stops. “When they see my truck
number coming, they know it’s
me,” Mr. Muhammad, 26, said with
pride. “Some of them request me.”
But some of the people he sees
and the places he stops at are now
unfamiliar because of newly add-
ed drop-offs.
One day this month his entire
route was only New York City
Housing Authority buildings. Food
Bank and City Harvest are trying
to serve residents in communities
where the virus has created a food
desert.
His first stop was that day was
the Bronx River Houses, a public
housing development where some
residents on top floors can see a
narrow band of the waterway it is
named after.
Norma Saunders, the resident
association president, had been
desperately calling elected offi-
cials in a search for food, espe-
cially for senior tenants who can-
not go to the grocery store.
“Around here, we don’t even have
a supermarket,” said Ms. Saun-
ders, 52. “It’s a bus ride away.”
She was happy to see Mr. Mu-
hammad pull up with the tractor-
trailer. “Thank you for doing this,”
she said as he unloaded the truck,
her mouth covered by a mask a
resident had made for her.
Two days earlier, Mr. Muham-
mad’s first stop, at St. Luke’s Epis-
copal Church in the Bronx, had
been a lot different. No one was
there. He called someone, who ex-
plained that the pantry and soup
kitchen were closed. “I’m not sure
what happened,” he said.
Hours later, he learned what had
happened: Donald Bookal, the
longtime executive director of the
church’s senior program, had died
of complications from the coro-
navirus. To protect volunteers and
the people served, the church de-
cided to close the pantry.
Mr. Bookal was 83.
“My dad was a part of that
church for the better part of 50
years,” said Stephanie Bookal, his
daughter. “He was like the back-
bone to the church. Nobody made
any moves without consulting
with him.”
He was in constant contact with
the public; there was no sheltering
in place for him. “He was all about
service,” his daughter said.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
At a City Harvest
location in Queens,
a volunteer packed
boxes for food banks
across the city, left.
A wide variety of
masks was on dis-
play at the Willis
Avenue church in
the Bronx, below.
Derrick Smalls at
the Willis Avenue
Seventh-day Ad-
ventist Church food
bank, above.
St. Luke’s Episcopal
Church in the Bronx
closed its pantry
after the death of
Donald Bookal, left.
LAPSES IN MONITORING
After Being Isolated
In New York Hotels,
Four Men Died Alone
From Page A1
monitor people staying at the ho-
tels, placing security guards and
emergency medical technicians in
inns with five or more patients
and screening guests to deter-
mine if they need a higher level of
care. He also announced plans to
hire a chief medical officer to over-
see the program.
In addition, the mayor prom-
ised an inquiry to determine how
the victims wound up dead after
receiving the all-clear from doc-
tors at three different hospitals
and while being monitored by the
city.
“Something doesn’t make sense
here,” he said on Monday. “Why
are these people — why have they
lost their lives?”
On Thursday, the mayor went
further. “What we are still trying
to understand is what happened
in the discharge process that
would have led someone to end up
being discharged to a hotel if there
was still any kind of danger,” he
said.
The formal cause of death for
Mr. Rowe and Mr. Melendez was
heart failure, the city’s medical ex-
aminer’s office said. But the coro-
navirus was a factor in the death
of Mr. Rowe, who was diabetic,
and possibly Mr. Melendez, who
had kidney disease, the office
said.
The third man at the Hilton Gar-
den Inn died of something other
than the virus, the mayor said,
without providing details.
Since the outbreak began, re-
search has shown the disease
spreads rapidly through families,
and in China and South Korea, of-
ficials had success in containing
the virus by aggressively screen-
ing people for fever and then iso-
lating the sick from their relatives.
“People who are in close prox-
imity to others are going to be at
an increased risk of getting in-
fected themselves,” Dr. Raymond
Niaura, the interim chairman of
the Department of Epidemiology
at New York University. “So fam-
ilies are, in a way, ground zero.”
City health officials have noted
the similarities between New
York and large East Asian cities,
where many people live in apart-
ments with several family mem-
bers.
“The experience from around
the world has been that until you
can stop transmission from one
person to another, you’re never
going to get a hold of this,” said Dr.
Jay Varma, a former health de-
partment official who is advising
Mr. de Blasio. “And a lot of that
transmission does occur in
homes.”
The city has leased more than
11,000 hotel rooms during the cri-
sis to do something similar, offer-
ing health care workers and pa-
tients an alternative to going
home or to shelters, where they
could put others at risk.
More than 4,000 patients have
been checked into the hotel
rooms, and more than a third of
them have completed their stays,
officials said. They were dis-
charged under city health guide-
lines that recommend waiting
three days after a fever or seven
days after other symptoms.
The patients were selected from
a pool of people being treated for
the virus at hospitals and clinics,
whose doctors indicated on a
questionnaire that they could be
discharged to a hotel. Those who
still required medical attention
were sent to hotels managed by
the New York City’s Health and
Hospitals Corporation.
The vast majority, however,
were determined to not need care
and were sent to rooms managed
by the city’s Emergency Manage-
ment office. City Hall has declined
requests to release a list of the ho-
tels where the city has secured
rooms, citing federal disability
and medical-privacy laws.
In addition to providing food de-
livery and laundry services,
Emergency Management as-
signed workers from a temp
agency to call the patients twice a
day.
Crewfacilities.com, a Texas
company that provides logistics
for housing large groups on short
notice, was awarded the $250 mil-
lion contract to secure the hotel
rooms, outbidding two competi-
tors, but it was not asked to moni-
tor the guests who had been dis-
charged from hospitals and clin-
ics, city officials said.
That job was given to Penda Ai-
ken Inc., a temporary employ-
ment agency in Brooklyn. Work-
ers recruited by the agency were
told to have hotel staff members
check on the patients if they did
not answer the telephone and to
summon medical help if the pa-
Jeffery C. Mays and Nate Schwe-
ber contributed reporting. Susan
C. Beachy contributed research.
N A13
tients’ symptoms worsened, offi-
cials said. But those protocols
were not tightly followed.
After the deaths, the city or-
dered Penda Aiken to remove one
of its employees who was not fol-
lowing “proper escalation proto-
cols” from working on the hotel
program. Penda Aiken did not re-
spond to a request for comment.
The company remains in
charge of the wellness calls, but
another firm, Hudson River
HealthCare, based upstate in
Peekskill, has been brought in to
monitor the patients on-site, city
officials said.
Penda Aiken and Hudson River
HealthCare are working under let-
ters of intent, and city officials
said contracts were still being ne-
gotiated.
Before the deaths over the
weekend, Mr. de Blasio suggested
that the city had not anticipated
the need for closer monitoring.
“You’d think if someone has been
discharged from the hospital, it’s
an all-clear and the reason they’re
in a hotel is simply transitional,”
he said.
Dr. Niaura said it was not un-
common for people recovering
from Covid-19, the disease caused
by the coronavirus, to suddenly
deteriorate. “We’re seeing that a
lot with this disease, where people
seem fine and then they just go
downhill,” he said.
In Mr. Rowe’s case, a temp
worker called him around 5 p.m.
on Friday. It remains unclear if he
answered, the police said, but he
was found dead at 1:15 p.m. the
next day by hotel workers.
Ms. Crittenden said her brother
had not answered her calls to his
room since he left Harlem Hospi-
tal Center and checked in at the
hotel about two weeks ago. “He
told me he was on the way there,”
Ms. Crittenden said. “And then I
never heard from him at all.”
Though her brother had health
issues, he had
no virus symp-
toms when she
last spoke to
him. Mr. Rowe’s
father, Robert
Rowe Sr., was
also diagnosed
with Covid-19 a
few days after
Julio Melen- his son and was
dez, 42, died on a ventilator,
after being she said.
released from Mr. Melen-
a hospital and dez, a native
sent to a hotel New Yorker,
to quarantine. had worked as a
driver before
going on dis-
ability because of kidney failure
about seven years ago, his aunt,
Yvonne Colón, said. He was admit-
ted to Montefiore Medical Center
in the Bronx on March 30 after he
spiked a fever just before a dialy-
sis treatment.
He left the hospital on April 7
and expected to leave the hotel af-
ter 14 days. “He was in good spir-
its,” said Ms. Colón, who lives in
Florida. “He was just waiting for
his quarantine to be over.”
But on Saturday afternoon, his
case worker said he had not an-
swered the phone and hotel work-
ers saw he had not taken food left
for him, the police said. He was
found dead a half-hour later.
“I just feel somebody dropped
the ball and just sent him to this
hotel to die,” Ms. Colón said. “We
shouldn’t have lost him.”
Mr. Sung had returned to New
York in recent years after a long
stay in Taiwan, where he was mar-
ried, said his nephew, Declan
Sung.
He had not answered a case
worker’s call on Sunday morning,
according to the police, and was
found dead 20 minutes later by ho-
tel security.
Mr. Sung’s daughter, Linda
Sung, said she was estranged
from her father, who was a diabet-
ic, and last spoke to him three
years ago.
“He can’t have a proper funeral
and I won’t be able to see him for
the last time because of every-
thing that’s going on now,” Ms.
Sung, 30, said. “So it just hit me
like a ton of bricks, really.”
BRITTAINY NEWMAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Three people discharged from
hospitals later died at a Hilton
Garden Inn in Manhattan.
A14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak The States
EMPTY COFFERS
Financial Aid to Struggling States Is Next Big Congressional Battle
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON — With con-
gressional approval of the latest
emergency pandemic measure
sealed on Thursday, the focus is
quickly shifting to an escalating
battle over whether Congress will
provide hundreds of billions of dol-
lars to states staggering under the
costs of the coronavirus outbreak.
Anxious governors on the front
lines of battling the pandemic have
been clamoring for more federal
help, saying their budgets are be-
ing stretched to the breaking point
and their revenues are collapsing
as they pour resources into health
care while their economies are
shut down. But the latest measure
contained no new state aid, as Re-
publicans resisted extending help
even as state officials described
their situations as increasingly
dire.
“Many states are already re-
porting precipitous declines in rev-
enues that fund state services in
health care, education, public
safety, transportation and other vi-
tal programs,” members of the Na-
tional Governors Association
wrote to congressional leaders this
week. “States and local govern-
ments need robust support from
the federal government as we nav-
igate the response to this pan-
demic and to help foster the eco-
nomic recovery that is ahead.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, Re-
publican of Kentucky and the ma-
jority leader, alarmed and angered
state officials on Wednesday when
he said he wanted to approach the
next round of pandemic legislation
more deliberately. He said he was
opposed to shipping money to
state governments if they were go-
ing to apply it to fiscal problems
unrelated to the pandemic, such as
shoring up underfunded pension
plans for public workers.
Rather than looking for hand-
outs, Mr. McConnell said states,
which shared $150 billion allocated
in previous pandemic legislation,
should consider filing for bank-
ruptcy. His aides threw fuel on the
fire in a news release that said the
Senate leader was opposed to
“Blue State Bailouts,” suggesting it
was Democratic-leaning states
that were seeking the money to
take care of problems caused by
fiscal mismanagement.
Those comments prompted a
sharp backlash, including from
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New
York, a Democrat, who lashed out
at Mr. McConnell for a second day
on Thursday.
Mary Williams Walsh and Jesse
McKinley contributed reporting.
STAY-AT-HOME ORDERS
Mixed Signals on Reopening Baffle Even the President’s Republican Allies
By RICHARD FAUSSET
and RICK ROJAS
ATLANTA — When Gov. Brian
Kemp of Georgia announced this
week that he would soon allow
restaurants, barbershops and other
businesses to reopen, the Republi-
can governor’s plan seemed in tune
with a president who had openly
encouraged protesters of social dis-
tancing restrictions.
And the president did seem
pleased. On Tuesday night, Vice
President Mike Pence and Presi-
dent Trump, in separate phone
calls, each expressed his support
for the governor’s coronavirus re-
sponse, said an official familiar with
the calls who was unauthorized to
speak about the matter.
That is why Mr. Trump’s criti-
cism on Wednesday and Thursday
— “I think it’s too soon” and “I was-
n’t happy with Brian Kemp,” the
president said during an afternoon
briefing — has baffled Mr. Kemp
and Georgia Republicans, whose
first-term governor rode to victory
on a Trump endorsement.
The president amped up his criti-
cism on Thursday. “I want them to
open,” he said of businesses, “and I
want them to open as soon as possi-
ble and I want the state to open. But
I was not happy with Brian Kemp. I
will tell you that.”
Mr. Trump’s public scoldings of
Mr. Kemp sent a confusing message
to other Republican governors who
are considering similar moves.
“You know you’re going to be left
hanging out to dry if you make a call
that’s at odds with Trump’s psyche
or mood or thinking on a given day,”
said Mark Sanford, the former Re-
publican governor of South Car-
olina and a persistent critic of Mr.
Trump. “And I think that in political
terms, given the size of his base,
that adds a level of complexity, par-
ticularly for red-state governors.”
The relationship between the
president and the Georgia gover-
nor, two natural political allies, was
Reporting was contributed by
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan
Martin from Washington, Patricia
Mazzei from Miami, and Vanessa
Swales from New York.
Mr. Cuomo has consistently said
that federal funding was desper-
ately needed to get the state back
on its feet and seemed gob-
smacked by the concept that it
should even consider declaring
bankruptcy, noting New York’s po-
sition as the nation’s financial serv-
ices center.
“That’s how you’re going to
bring this national economy
back?” asked an incredulous Mr.
Cuomo, who called Mr. McConnell
irresponsible and reckless. “You
want to see that market fall
through the cellar? Let New York
already complicated. The president
was irritated when Mr. Kemp de-
cided to pass over Representative
Doug Collins, a staunch administra-
tion ally, while filling an open Sen-
ate seat late last year, according to
officials in the White House and on
Capitol Hill.
Still, after Mr. Trump encouraged
social distancing protests last
weekend, Mr. Kemp’s plan to allow
gyms, hair and nail salons, bowling
alleys and tattoo parlors to reopen
did not seem like a stretch. Those
businesses were to reopen on Fri-
day and restaurants will be allowed
to resume limited dine-in service on
Monday. Movie theaters and other
entertainment venues will also be
allowed to reopen.
Mr. Kemp said the changes were
crucial to helping business owners
and employees get back to work.
But they were roundly criticized by
public health experts and mayors,
including Atlanta’s, Keisha Lance
Bottoms, who said she was not con-
sulted about the plan — and argued
that Georgia’s largest metropolis
was not ready to open for business.
Many of the cases in Georgia have
been concentrated in the Atlanta
metropolitan area. The state has
more than 21,500 reported cases as
of Thursday, with 872 deaths, ac-
cording to state health data.
The president’s criticism did not
cause Mr. Kemp to adjust his plan,
but the opposition to the governor’s
order now puts Mr. Trump in the
same camp as liberal Democrats
like Ms. Bottoms. The president’s
comments on Wednesday are just
one shard of his seemingly contra-
dictory series of positions regard-
ing when to relax social distancing
measures and reopen American
businesses.
Last Thursday, Mr. Trump an-
nounced a careful, phased system
for states to follow as they moved
closer to normalcy. The next day, he
unleashed a series of tweets en-
couraging protesters to “liberate”
three states — Michigan, Minne-
sota and Virginia — where Demo-
cratic governors have imposed
strict social distancing restrictions.
The president has also said in the
past that he has “total” authority to
JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
State declare bankruptcy.”
In a virtual interview sponsored
by Politico, Gov. Larry Hogan of
Maryland, a Republican who
heads the National Governors As-
sociation, said he expected that Mr.
McConnell would come to regret
his remarks and noted that the
Trump administration had been
supportive of state assistance.
“I’m hopeful that we are going
to, between the administration and
the 55 governors in America, in-
cluding territories, we are going to
convince Senator McConnell that
maybe he shouldn’t let the states
impose his will on the states, a posi-
tion he later appeared to reverse.
Then his attorney general, William
P. Barr, said that the federal govern-
ment might sue states that put in
place measures the White House
disagrees with.
The result is that governors,
even those allied with Mr. Trump,
are all but forced to pay close atten-
tion to the administration’s guid-
ance on the timing of opening up
their economies.
And the guidance, critics say, is
all over the place.
“The message is inconsistent,”
said Jim Hood, the former attorney
general of Mississippi who ran for
governor as a Democrat last year.
“The one thing that isn’t inconsis-
tent is what the doctors are saying.”
Mr. Kemp moved earlier than
other governors in planning to re-
open, and with a more sweeping ap-
proach. And while he appeared to
have the support of the president,
Mr. Trump’s tone began to shift in a
phone call with Mr. Kemp on
Wednesday before the White House
coronavirus briefing, the official fa-
miliar with the calls said. By that
time, Mr. Kemp had taken a sus-
tained beating from critics on TV
news and elsewhere.
Mr. Kemp’s messaging through-
out the pandemic has not strayed
from that of other conservative
state officials. At first, he was
among the governors, many in the
South, who resisted adopting a
statewide stay-at-home order, cit-
ing concerns about worsening the
economic fallout.
And in moving to ease restric-
tions, he has echoed other gover-
nors who have described their ef-
forts as proceeding with caution,
calling the changes gradual and
aimed at protecting public health.
Seventeen states have stay-at-
home or shelter-in-place orders
that are set to expire at the end of
the month, and several governors
from both parties have said they
have no plans to extend them.
A patchwork of strategies has be-
gun to emerge, state by state. While
Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama, a Repub-
lican, will not extend her order, she
said she planned to follow her state
Sisters Carotina Olmos, above left, and Francis Tran at Immacu-
late Conception Church in the Bronx on Thursday. Left, in
Mountain View, Calif., few people on a once-bustling street.
go bankrupt,” said Mr. Hogan, who
said his state would soon face a
$2.8 billion shortfall.
President Trump gave ambiva-
lent signals at his White House
briefing on Thursday, suggesting
that he might be open to offering
aid to the states, but also saying,
“It is interesting that the states
that are in trouble do happen to be
blue.” He singled out Illinois, and
said many states had been in finan-
cial trouble long before “the
plague.”
States are facing severe finan-
cial strain, as sales tax revenues
dry up amid quarantines that have
shuttered restaurants, movie the-
aters, gyms and nail salons. That
pain has been compounded by the
number of people losing their jobs
and filing for state unemployment
benefits. Another 4.4 million peo-
ple filed for unemployment last
week and, while the federal gov-
ernment is kicking in an extra $600
per beneficiary, states must pay
the bulk of unemployment benefits
using trust funds that are already
running low.
“Most state trust funds are un-
Gov. Brian Kemp’s back-to-work plan was roundly criticized.
task force’s recommendations of
first reopening small retailers,
restaurants and other businesses
with protective measures in place.
Colorado’s governor announced
this week that he would not extend
its stay-at-home order, which will
expire on Sunday, while the gover-
nors of Illinois, Michigan, North
Carolina and Pennsylvania, all
Democrats, announced extensions.
Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee an-
nounced on Thursday that many
restaurants across the state could
resume limited dine-in service on
Monday, but he said cities including
Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville
were excluded.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a
Republican who has been close to
Mr. Trump, gave members of a task
force until Friday to issue recom-
mendations on reopening.
In television and radio appear-
ances on Wednesday, Gov. Greg Ab-
bott of Texas heralded a major an-
nouncement coming as early as Fri-
day, in which he would detail plans
for reopening “massive amounts of
businesses.” The plan appeared in
many ways similar to Georgia’s,
JAMES ESTRIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES
derfunded for this crisis,” said Jar-
ed Walczak, the director of state
tax policy at the Tax Foundation.
“It’s hard not to be. The magnitude
of this crisis meant that very few
states were prepared.”
At least three states — Califor-
nia, New York and Ohio — are ex-
pected to deplete their trust funds
within two weeks, with Kentucky,
Texas and Massachusetts close be-
hind. Once those funds run out, the
states can borrow money from the
federal government, but must re-
pay it within two years.
Republicans on Capitol Hill say
they believe Mr. McConnell, who
opposed new state aid in talks that
produced the most recent meas-
ure, was trying to reassure restive
conservatives that he would not
give easily on more funding in up-
coming talks after Congress has al-
ready allocated about $2.7 trillion
in deficit spending in response the
emergency. But he faces signifi-
cant obstacles if he intends to block
the aid, and most see that as an un-
likely outcome given the extent of
bipartisan support for more state
relief.
BRYNN ANDERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
with movie theaters and hair salons
to return to operating and restau-
rants to offer limited dine-in serv-
ice. Mr. Abbott has already opened
state parks, permitted some elec-
tive medical procedures and al-
lowed for what he described as “re-
tail to go,” essentially takeout for a
wide range of consumer goods.
Gov. Henry McMaster of South
Carolina also moved this week to
reopen some retail businesses, tak-
ing the step after putting into place
his “home or work” order just over
two weeks ago. State health offi-
cials said that South Carolina, with
more than 4,700 cases of the virus,
has not seen a consistent decline.
Mr. McMaster’s plan has been
praised in his state, with Senator
Lindsey Graham, Republican of
South Carolina, lauding him in a
tweet this week for pursuing a
“small reopening of our state’s
economy with a focus on social dis-
tancing.” Yet he was also critical of
Mr. Kemp: “I worry that our friends
and neighbors in Georgia are going
too fast too soon.”
Some governors, in moving to re-
lax restrictions, have displayed an
Not only do Democrats in the
House and the Senate strongly
support state aid — it was one con-
cession Democrats were unable to
wring out of Republicans in the lat-
est round — but many Republicans
have made it clear they do as well.
Several have signed on to bipar-
tisan bills and letters calling for the
aid. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republi-
can of Louisiana, has joined Sena-
tor Robert Menendez, Democrat of
New Jersey, in drafting legislation
providing $500 billion sought by
the states.
After Senate approval of the leg-
islation on Tuesday, Senator Rob
Portman, Republican of Ohio,
called for shoring up the states as
well.
“I believe we need to do more to
help state and local governments
affected by this crisis, and I believe
the next package should provide
additional assistance,” he said, also
calling for increased flexibility
from the administration on how
states can spend the money.
Lawmakers say the latest round
of funding could again run out in a
matter of days, opening the door to
calls for another rescue measure
and beginning the struggle over
aid to the states in earnest.
While many Republicans back
the state relief, top aides said that
most would join Mr. McConnell in
balking at the idea that it could be
applied to a pension bailout and
that a compromise could include
strict prohibitions on how the
money is spent. A top state law-
maker in Illinois last week includ-
ed a request for $10 billion in pen-
sion relief in the state’s appeal for
federal help, though the problems
long preceded the pandemic.
Many state and municipal pen-
sion systems have been underwa-
ter since the dot-com crash of 2001,
when much of their funding from
the booming 1990s melted away.
Their problems worsened substan-
tially during the market crash of
2008. Investment losses that year
and in 2009 prompted officials in a
number of states to attempt pen-
sion overhauls in the hope of mak-
ing their plans sustainable. They
were promptly sued by retirees
and public workers’ unions, who
cited state laws and constitutional
provisions that make it illegal to
tamper with public pension plans.
The pension problem is not
unique to red states or blue. Illi-
nois, a steadfast Democratic
stronghold, is seen by experts as
the state with the most intractable
pension problems. But in Ken-
tucky, Mr. McConnell’s home state,
the pension system is in nearly as
grave danger as the one in Illinois.
eagerness many Americans do not
share, as polling has found stay-at-
home measures have broad sup-
port across the country and that
people prioritize public health over
the potential economic fallout. Mr.
Hood noted that where he lives, in a
deeply conservative pocket of rural
northeast Mississippi, many were
embracing social distancing.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “as
cynical as we are, we try to trust our
leaders will start making the right
decisions.”
In Georgia, the disagreement be-
tween Mr. Trump and Mr. Kemp
goes beyond the lifting of social dis-
tancing restrictions. It has also
been strongly felt in this year’s race
for the Senate seat, which Mr. Kemp
temporarily filled with Kelly Loeff-
ler, an Atlanta-area businesswom-
an.
The president repeatedly tried to
interject himself in the appoint-
ment process, but his entreaties to
pick Mr. Collins were ignored, ac-
cording to Republicans familiar
with the outreach.
Mr. Collins is now running
against Ms. Loeffler, who has taken
great pains since her swearing-in in
January to show her fealty to Mr.
Trump, given his popularity among
the Republican base.
Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr.
Kemp in the 2018 Republican pri-
mary was a major factor in propel-
ling him to a thin victory, a fact Mr.
Trump mentioned on Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of good feeling be-
tween myself and Brian Kemp,” Mr.
Trump said. “I like him a lot. I hap-
pen to disagree with him only in
time and timing.”
More generally, Georgia Republi-
cans see no reason to highlight any
fissure that might exist between
Mr. Kemp and Mr. Trump, both of
whom have proven they can excite
G.O.P. voters with pro-gun, anti-ille-
gal immigration rhetoric.
“I hope that our governor’s right,
and I hope the president’s right,”
State Representative Ron
Stephens, a Savannah Republican,
said on Thursday. “Actually both of
them are right in that we’ve got to
get the economy going. I just don’t
know the timing of it.”

Tracking an Outbreak Capitol Hill
NEWS ANALYSIS
Democrats Dug In, and Won Big Republican Concessions on Stimulus
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON — In January
2018, Senate Democrats took a
politically risky stand, shutting
down the government to insist on
protections for hundreds of thou-
sands of undocumented immi-
grants. Gleeful Republicans saw
the obstruction strategy as a huge
blunder and pounded the Demo-
crats, who caved after only a few
days of sharp attacks and cut a
deal to reopen.
Times — and circumstances —
have changed.
Democrats have now blocked
two consecutive coronavirus
rescue packages pushed by Re-
publicans and withstood wither-
ing criticism to win concessions —
and hundreds of billions of dollars
— they said were vital. At nearly
$500 billion, the latest measure to
move through Congress this week
ended up being almost twice the
size and much broader in scope
than the original bill Senator
Mitch McConnell, Republican of
Kentucky and the majority leader,
tried to ram through two weeks
earlier without negotiations.
It was a potentially dangerous
strategy for Democrats, particu-
larly in an election year, that left
them open to accusations from
President Trump and congres-
sional Republicans that they were
denying desperately needed
money at a crucial moment for
businesses trying to survive in the
face of the pandemic. It may have
also reduced their leverage in the
next fight over a much larger
stimulus measure that is likely to
top $1 trillion.
Emily Cochrane contributed re-
porting.
LEGISLATION
House,
In Masks,
Approves
More Aid
By EMILY COCHRANE
WASHINGTON — The House
gave resounding approval on
Thursday to a $484 billion coro-
navirus relief package to restart a
depleted loan program for dis-
tressed small businesses and to
provide funds for hospitals and co-
ronavirus testing, and it moved to
ramp up oversight of the sprawling
federal response to the pandemic.
President Trump said he would
to quickly sign the measure — the
latest installment in a government
aid program that is approaching $3
trillion — which passed with broad
bipartisan support even as some
liberal Democrats condemned it
for being too stingy. But the fight
over what should be included fore-
shadowed a pitched partisan battle
to come over the next round of fed-
eral relief, which is likely to center
on aid to states and cities facing
dire financial straits.
At the White House, Mr. Trump,
who said he was “grateful” that
Congress had cleared the bill, said
the issue of funding for struggling
states was “probably going to be
the next thing on the list.”
Even as they dispensed with an-
other nearly half-trillion taxpayer
dollars, Democrats were moving to
scrutinize the administration’s
handling of the funds. Just before
the aid package passed, they
pushed through a measure creat-
ing a special House subcommittee
to investigate the Trump adminis-
tration’s response to the pandemic
and the array of federal spending
measures enacted to address it, de-
fying objections from Mr. Trump
and Republicans.
“We have our differences, but we
are coming together on this partic-
ular bill,” said Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, who appeared on the House
floor wearing a cream-colored
scarf she used as a face covering on
Thursday as she moved around the
Capitol, where most lawmakers
and staff aides wore masks to
guard against spreading the virus.
“I’m proud of that. It is bipartisan,
it is urgent, and let us get on with it
so that we can get on to supporting
our heroes in a way that is worthy
of their sacrifice.”
The package that passed on
Thursday by a vote of 388 to 5 was
an interim step after enactment of
the $2.2 trillion stimulus law. It
emerged from a flurry of negotia-
tions between Democrats and the
Trump administration after fund-
ing lapsed for the Paycheck Protec-
tion Program, a small-business
loan program created by the stimu-
lus plan that had been over-
whelmed by demand.
The measure replenished that
program, providing $320 billion for
it, but at the insistence of Demo-
crats who demanded additional
Catie Edmondson contributed re-
porting.
But their willingness to take on
those risks reflects Democrats’
confidence that the terrain of the
current debate — a public health
crisis and economic disaster that
will require the broadest govern-
ment relief effort since the post-
World War II era — plays to their
core strengths as a party. It is also
based in part on their belief that
Mr. Trump, whose re-election
hopes are likely to rise or fall
based on the public perception of
his administration’s response to
the pandemic, has a strong incen-
tive to compromise with them.
“We think we are right,” Sena-
tor Chuck Schumer of New York,
the Democratic leader, said in an
interview explaining his party’s
stance. “People were just united
that this was a serious crisis, and
it was sort of obvious what Mc-
Connell was trying to do.”
The same was true last month,
when Democrats twice voted to
block a sweeping economic stimu-
lus package that contained jobless
aid, direct payments to Americans
and business bailouts while they
held out for their priorities, in-
cluding stricter oversight require-
ments over how the Trump ad-
ministration would spend the vast
amounts of money. That $2.2
trillion measure passed unani-
mously.
“My overall observation is it’s
pretty hard to win a spending
contest with a Democrat,” Mr.
McConnell said in a brief inter-
view on Tuesday. “They always
want to spend more on every-
thing.”
Mr. McConnell has evidently
had enough of a dynamic that
seems to be empowering Demo-
crats. After the latest aid bill
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi helped clear a $484 billion relief package for small businesses, hospitals, and coronavirus testing. The measure passed, 388 to 5.
funds and policy changes, it also in-
cluded $75 billion for hospitals and
$25 billion for testing — plus a man-
date that the Trump administration
come up with a strategy for helping
states deploy and gain access to
tests across the country.
Representative Kevin McCarthy
of California, the Republican
leader, chastised Democrats for
what he described as obstruction,
saying that “the cruel result is less
assistance and more anxiety for
workers, families and small busi-
nesses.”
“Democrats need to stop the
gamesmanship and get back to
putting Americans first,” he added.
The vote took place in a House
chamber transformed by the pan-
demic. Most congressional officials
and lawmakers covered their faces
with blue surgical masks or fabrics
in an array of colors, patterns and
— in the case of at least one mem-
ber — glitter.
In between votes that slowed to a
crawl to allow for social distancing,
more than a dozen staff members
wearing orange gloves and masks
rushed to clean the chamber with
disinfecting sprays and wipes,
scrubbing armrests, banisters and
microphones before lawmakers re-
turned.
Multiple lawmakers who had
previously had to isolate outside
Washington after testing positive
or being exposed to Covid-19, the
disease caused by the coronavirus,
returned to vote. Representative
Maxine Waters, Democrat of Cali-
fornia, her voice cracking with
emotion, said that she was dedicat-
ing the bill to her sister, who was
dying of the virus in a St. Louis hos-
pital.
Congressional officials and rep-
resentatives took unusual precau-
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
passed the Senate on Tuesday, he
cited mounting deficit spending —
Congress has now appropriated
more than $2.7 trillion in only
seven weeks to confront the pan-
demic — and declared that Repub-
licans would entertain no more
coronavirus rescue packages until
all lawmakers were back in Wash-
ington for a normal Senate ses-
sion. That scenario could delay
additional aid while allowing a
fuller debate on emerging propos-
als, rather than negotiation and
approval by a handful of top law-
makers in a nearly empty Capitol.
The Republican leader also
sought to play down Democratic
gains in the bill, emphasizing that
they had failed to secure addi-
tional aid to state and local gov-
ernments that they had ag-
gressively sought.
“It’s unfortunate that it took our
Democratic colleagues 12 days to
agree to a deal that contains
essentially nothing that Republi-
cans ever opposed,” Mr. McCon-
nell said.
But the measure did contain
multiple things that Mr. McCon-
nell initially rejected as he sought
approval of a bare-bones infusion
of $250 billion into a small-busi-
ness loan program that had
quickly run dry of funds. Instead,
that program got $320 billion in
new funds, including $60 billion
secured by Democrats to be fun-
neled through smaller community
lenders to reach businesses that
can struggle to get loans from big
banks.
Also included was $60 billion to
replenish exhausted Small Busi-
ness Administration disaster
relief accounts, $75 billion for
hospitals and $25 billion for
tions. Lawmakers filtered through
the chamber in smaller groups to
cast their votes — prolonging the
voting period to about 90 minutes
compared with the usual 15 — and
boxes of gloves and surgical masks
were set outside the chamber
doors, which remained open so that
those coming and going would not
have to touch them. During the de-
bate, a few lawmakers wandered
up to the gallery above, typically
reserved for the public, to witness
the spectacle.
Democratic leaders had initially
planned to push through a historic
modification to House rules that
would allow for remote voting, but
they postponed the move amid op-
position from Republicans, who
have begun clamoring for the
chamber to resume business as
usual, echoing calls from conserva-
tives around the country.
“I have always believed that
whenever possible, any changes to
our rules should be bipartisan,”
said Representative Jim McGov-
ern, Democrat of Massachusetts
and the chairman of the House
Rules Committee, who will exam-
ine the issue with other top Repub-
licans and Democrats. “However,
the status quo is unacceptable and
dangerous, not just to members of
Congress, but, more importantly, to
everyone we come in contact with.”
Among those taking precautions
on the floor was Ms. Pelosi, who
carefully wiped down the lectern
and removed her scarf from her
face each time she delivered re-
marks. She donned purple latex
gloves to carefully write her vote to
form the select committee.
Progressive Democrats voiced
strong opposition to the aid pack-
age, saying that it was woefully in-
sufficient.
Covid-19 testing, plus a mandate
that the Trump administration
establish a strategy to help states
vastly step up the deployment of
tests throughout the country — a
move Republicans had opposed.
“Of the four major things we
pushed for, we got three over
Republican resistance,” Mr. Schu-
mer said. “But they knew they
needed us.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who
early on warned Mr. McConnell
that his proposal would not clear
A risky strategy that
could reduce leverage
in the next fight.
the Democratically controlled
House, called the outcome a clear
win for her party’s priorities. She
said the legislation would not
have been delayed at all if Repub-
licans had accepted a Democratic
counteroffer two weeks ago.
“They like to say, ‘Oh, we held
up,’” Ms. Pelosi told reporters.
“No, we didn’t hold it up. They
held up. And now we have pre-
vailed.”
Democrats had substantial help
in pushing back against Republi-
cans, including a willing negotia-
tor in Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin, who has shown a tend-
ency to side with Democrats that
has unnerved Republicans. Their
efforts to place conditions on the
small-business loan funds also
benefited from a public outcry
over how the program was being
Representative Ilhan Omar,
Democrat of Minnesota, said it
would have been “indefensible” for
Congress to fail to restore funding
for the small-business program,
“but it’s also indefensible for us not
to focus on replenishing the coffers
of Americans, and focus on making
sure they are able to support pay-
ing their rent, making sure that our
cities and states aren’t going bank-
rupt, and making sure that Ameri-
can families aren’t dying of
hunger.”
Nearly two dozen liberal groups,
including Indivisible and Justice
Democrats — the group that
helped start the campaign of Rep-
resentative Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez, Democrat of New York —
wrote a letter to House Democrats
urging them to stop “unnecessarily
giving away leverage that people
depend on you to use in order to
save lives.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who has said
the measure was far too small and
should include aid to struggling
states and cities, was the sole Dem-
ocrat who opposed the bill. Four
Republicans voted no, while Repre-
sentative Justin Amash of Michi-
gan, the chamber’s lone independ-
ent, voted present.
And while most Republicans
supported the bill, many took the
opportunity to urge Congress to re-
turn to its routine business in
Washington and warned that they
would not be agreeing to any more
huge relief packages negotiated
among top Democrats and the ad-
ministration with little input from
rank-and-file lawmakers.
“Today, I’m holding my nose vot-
ing for a bill I had no chance to
shape,” declared Representative
Chip Roy, Republican of Texas.
“But this is it, Madam Speaker —
administered, after it emerged
that the money had been flowing
more easily to large chains and
publicly traded companies than to
the smaller mom-and-pop opera-
tions it was intended to help.
“We needed to make sure they
were working for everybody, not
just the most-connected busi-
nesses,” said Senator Chris Van
Hollen, Democrat of Maryland,
who said the business owners he
consulted wanted Democrats to
institute changes in the loan
effort, not rush to inject more
funding into a flawed program.
Even after the final agreement
was struck, Republicans contin-
ued to slam Democrats for the
delay. Senator John Barrasso of
Wyoming, the chamber’s No. 3
Republican, called it “disgraceful.”
“For Chuck Schumer and
Nancy Pelosi to hold up that
money for these people and hold
them all hostage to create lever-
age is unconscionable to me,” he
said. “They seemed to have no
sense of urgency or sense of the
crisis that is hitting this country.”
The Trump campaign released
a scathing ad on Monday attack-
ing Ms. Pelosi for blocking the
funding, juxtaposing footage of
poor Americans struggling in the
pandemic with clips of an appear-
ance the speaker made on late-
night TV in which she showed off
her favorite ice creams. “Nancy
Antoinette,” it called her.
Even as congressional Demo-
crats were celebrating their gains
in the legislation, they were under
fire from progressive lawmakers
and advocacy groups who saw the
package as insufficient. Some on
the left faulted Democrats for not
enough,” he said.
Republicans also resisted the
creation of the oversight panel,
which will have the power to sub-
poena documents and witnesses,
unanimously opposing it in a party-
line vote of 212 to 182. The commit-
tee is charged with examining the
coronavirus relief packages en-
acted over the past two months,
and scrutinizing “preparedness for
and response to the coronavirus
crisis.” That includes deployment
of testing and containment, the dis-
tribution of equipment and medical
supplies and the development of a
treatment.
“We are talking about how this
money is spent as we go forward,”
Ms. Pelosi said. “This isn’t about
assigning blame. This is about tak-
ing responsibility.”
Mr. Trump does not see it that
way. Last month, when Ms. Pelosi
announced she would form the
panel, he dismissed it as a partisan
“witch hunt.” Republicans fought
the committee’s creation, with
leaders actively encouraging rank-
and-file lawmakers to vote against
it on Thursdaye.
The panel is to be led by Repre-
sentative James E. Clyburn of
South Carolina, the No. 3 House
Democrat, and will have up to six
other Democrats, as well as five
Republicans.
Mr. McCarthy said on Wednes-
day that he had told Ms. Pelosi that
he considered the committee re-
dundant.
“This committee will be the only
committee weighted politically,”
Mr. McCarthy said on Thursday on
the floor. “The public does not want
to see politics. Why would we waste
our time bringing people back to
create a political committee?”
The stimulus law enacted last
N A15
extracting more from the Republi-
cans, particularly for states and
cities that are being pushed to the
financial brink by the pandemic,
or winning more direct aid for
beleaguered Americans wonder-
ing how to pay rent when they
cannot expect another check from
the government.
“This is a win for McConnell
and Trump,” said Ezra Levin, an
executive director of the group
Indivisible. “This Covid 3.5 pack-
age is nothing close to what fam-
ilies and workers need right now.”
Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi
disputed that notion and promised
a “robust” Phase 4 of the pan-
demic relief effort. They noted
that the Trump administration
was also already mapping plans
for another bill that would include
infrastructure investments and
aid for states. Democrats said that
action would become inevitable as
states and cities face decisions on
laying off emergency workers and
cutting other services and as the
public clamors for help.
Mr. McConnell appears to be
digging in, telling the conserva-
tive radio host Hugh Hewitt on
Wednesday that he wanted to
“push the pause button” on coro-
navirus relief legislation, and that
“this whole business of additional
assistance for state and local
governments needs to be thor-
oughly evaluated.”
But with the pandemic continu-
ing to devastate the economy and
facing intense pressure to respond
from Democrats, the White
House, governors of both parties
and some of his own lawmakers,
Mr. McConnell may once again
find himself in the unusual posi-
tion of struggling to hold the line.
ANNA MONEYMAKER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
month established a three-pronged
structure to oversee the carrying
out of the legislation, at the insist-
ence of Democrats who blocked its
passage until they could build in ac-
countability measures. Under that
law, a special inspector general
within the Treasury Department, a
committee of inspectors general
and a congressional oversight com-
mission are all tasked with examin-
ing how the money is spent.
But that oversight has been slow
to take shape. Mr. Trump moved to
oust the leader of the committee of
inspectors general, removing
Glenn A. Fine, who had been the
acting inspector general for the De-
fense Department and set to lead
the new Pandemic Response Ac-
countability Committee.
As of Friday, the Congressional
Oversight Commission had four of
its five members, with Ms. Pelosi
and Senator Mitch McConnell, Re-
publican of Kentucky and the ma-
jority leader, yet to announce who
will lead it.
Congressional leaders have se-
lected Bharat Ramamurti, a former
aide to Senator Elizabeth Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts; Sena-
tor Patrick J. Toomey, Republican
of Pennsylvania; Representative
French Hill, Republican of Arkan-
sas; and Representative Donna E.
Shalala, Democrat of Florida.
Ms. Shalala has faced calls for
her resignation from the board af-
ter The Miami Herald reported
that she failed to properly disclose
stock sales in 2019, which she apol-
ogized for. But a spokesman for Ms.
Pelosi said that Ms. Shalala re-
tained “the speaker’s complete
confidence” and that she had been
working with the House Ethics
Committee to address the issues
with her personal investments.
A16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak The New Reality
THE PREPANDEMIC ERA
From ‘Will I Get It’ to ‘Did I Have It,’ Americans Revisit Those Sick Days
This article is by Julie Bosman,
Amy Harmon and Thomas Fuller.
CHICAGO — In January, a
mystery illness swept through a
call center in a skyscraper on
Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
Close to 30 people in one depart-
ment alone had symptoms — dry,
deep coughs and fevers they
could not shake. When they grad-
ually returned to work after tak-
ing sick days, they sat in their cu-
bicles looking wan and tired.
“I’ve started to think it was the
coronavirus,” said Julie Parks, a
63-year-old employee who was
among the sick. “I may have had
it, but I can’t be sure. It’s limbo.”
The revelation this week that a
death in the United States in
early February was the result of
the coronavirus has significantly
altered the understanding of how
early the virus may have been
circulating in this country. Re-
searchers now believe that hid-
den outbreaks were creeping
through cities like Chicago, New
York, Seattle and Boston in Janu-
ary and February, earlier than
previously known.
The new timeline has lent cre-
dence to a question on the minds
of many Americans: Did I al-
ready have the coronavirus?
The retroactive search is hap-
pening on many levels. People
who had suffered dreadful bouts
with flulike illnesses are now
wondering whether it had been
the coronavirus. Doctors are
thinking back to unexplained
cases. Medical examiners are
poring over their records looking
for possible misdiagnosed
deaths. And local politicians are
demanding investigations.
Brian Gustafson, a coroner in
Rock Island County, Ill., said he
had no capability to perform
post-mortem coronavirus tests,
but firmly believed that coro-
navirus deaths and illnesses
were missed across the country
during weeks, early this year,
when the authorities believed the
virus was mainly overseas.
Included in Mr. Gustafson’s
suspicions of an undercount:
himself. He is convinced that he
had the coronavirus in January,
when he was so crushingly tired
and feverish, he could scarcely
summon the strength to walk to
the bathroom from his bed.
“I think it was here long before
we knew it,” said Mr. Gustafson,
who is also a nurse and said he
believes that he contracted the
virus from one of the recently de-
ceased people who was brought
to the coroner’s office long before
anyone in Illinois was looking for
positive coronavirus cases.
“That’s the only logical thing I
Julie Bosman reported from Chi-
cago, Thomas Fuller from San
Francisco, and Amy Harmon from
New York.
PUBLIC HEALTH
New York City Seen With 1 in 5 Infected
From Page A1
the infection rate in the population
— where it’s higher, where it’s
lower — to inform you on a re-
opening strategy,” Mr. Cuomo
said. “Then when you start re-
opening, you can watch that infec-
tion rate to see if it’s going up and
if it’s going up, slow down.”
The testing in New York is
among several efforts by public
health officials around the coun-
try to determine how many people
may have been already exposed
to the virus, beyond those who
have tested positive. The results
appear to conform with research
from Northeastern University
that indicated that the coro-
navirus was circulating by early
February in the New York area
and other major cities.
In California, a pair of studies
using antibody testing found rates
of exposure as high as 4 percent in
Santa Clara County and 5 percent
in Los Angeles County — higher
than those indicated by infection
tests, though not nearly as high as
found in New York.
In New York City, about 21 per-
cent tested positive for coro-
navirus antibodies during the
state survey. The rate was about
17 percent on Long Island, nearly
12 percent in Westchester and
Rockland Counties and less than 4
percent in the rest of the state.
State researchers sampled
blood from around 3,000 people
over two days, including about
1,300 in New York City, at grocery
and big-box stores. The results
were sent to the state’s
Wadsworth facility in Albany, a re-
spected public health lab.
Dr. Howard A. Zucker, the state
health commissioner, said the lab
had set a high bar for determining
positive results, that it had been
Reporting was contributed by Luis
Ferré-Sadurní, Apoorva Man-
davilli, Jesse McKinley and Donald
G. McNeil Jr.
Malika Abdulkhsanova explained how to test for the virus in Brooklyn last week. Many people now wonder if they already had it.
can think of.”
Some people have spent part of
their days sheltering at home go-
ing over the details of their bouts
with what could have been the
coronavirus. In Rothschild, Wis.,
Tommie Swenson and his girl-
friend, Tammy Swikert, keep
thinking of the illness they con-
tracted during the winter that
spread widely through their vil-
lage of 5,000 people.
It was nothing like the flu, said
Mr. Swenson, a retired truck
driver. Milk and soda tasted
funny, or like nothing at all. He
could barely sleep at night, he
had such a rattling cough and felt
a crushing weight on his chest.
“We talk about it all the time,”
Mr. Swenson said. “What if we
did have the coronavirus? Are
we immune to it now, or are we
going to catch it again? What
does this mean?”
Infectious disease experts say
the answer is complicated. Many
believe that between five and 20
times more people have been ex-
posed to the coronavirus than
have tested positive, and there is
a growing body of data to support
that.
But the likelihood that you are
one of them varies based on
where you live. Blood tests that
can detect coronavirus antibod-
ies may have high false positive
rates when exposure to the virus
given blanket approval to develop
coronavirus tests by the Food and
Drug Administration and that
state officials had discussed this
particular test with the agency.
He said that while concerns
about some tests on the market
were valid, the state’s test was re-
liable enough to determine immu-
nity — and, possibly, send people
back to the office.
“It is a way to say this person
had the disease and they can go
back into the work force,” Dr.
Zucker said. “A strong test like we
have can tell you that you have
A critical tool to
determine when to
restart the economy.
antibodies.”
But he cautioned that the length
of any such immunity remained
unknown. “The amount of time,
we need to see. We don’t know that
yet,” he said, adding, “They will
last a while.”
Unlike so-called diagnostic
tests, which determine whether
someone is infected, often using
nasal swabs, blood tests for
Covid-19 antibodies are intended
to reveal whether a person was
previously exposed and has de-
veloped an immune response.
Some tests also measure the
amount of antibodies present.
Hours before Mr. Cuomo’s pre-
sentation, a top health official in
New York City expressed general
skepticism about the utility of
antibody tests — especially those
on the private market — when it
comes to questions of immunity
and critical decisions over social
distancing and reopening the
economy.
Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis, the
city’s top official for disease con-
trol, wrote in an email alert on
in a given population is relatively
low. It was also a bad year for sea-
sonal influenza, so if you felt
lousy in January or February,
there is a decent chance you had
the flu. And even as more reliable
antibody tests become available,
it is not known how long people
who have antibodies may be im-
mune to the virus.
“Everyone desperately wants
to be immune to this thing,” said
Andrew Noymer, an associate
professor of public health at the
University of California, Irvine,
“and they’re projecting their
hope onto the data.”
Beyond the yearning to know
one’s own status, knowing how
many people in a population have
been infected is important be-
cause of herd immunity. Since an
infected person is thought to pass
the virus on to two or three other
people, for the virus to stop
spreading, at least 50 percent of
the population has to have been
exposed.
“In terms of policy decisions,
we’re nowhere near herd immu-
nity, so that’s the answer,” said
Natalie Dean, an assistant pro-
fessor of biostatistics at the Uni-
versity of Florida.
In hard-hit New York City,
about 21 percent of supermarket
customers who were tested for
coronavirus antibodies tested
positive, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
Wednesday that such tests “may
produce false negative or false
positive results,” pointing to “sig-
nificant voids” in using the sci-
ence to pinpoint immunity.
The alert, sent to medical
providers and other subscribers,
went on to warn that the conse-
quences of relying on potentially
false results may lead to “provid-
ing patients incorrect guidance on
preventive interventions like
physical distancing or protective
equipment.”
Dr. Daskalakis, early in the out-
break, had been a strong voice ar-
guing for social distancing meas-
ures and urging Mayor Bill de Bla-
sio to close schools in New York
City. When Mr. de Blasio resisted
doing so, Dr. Daskalakis threat-
ened to resign, a city official said.
City Hall has said the mayor was
never told of the threat.
Patrick Gallahue, a spokesman
for the city health department,
said the alert referred to “unvet-
ted tests outside of a lab setting —
which is not what the state is do-
ing.”
He added that there “isn’t any
daylight here” between the city
and state.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, an in-
fectious disease expert at the Uni-
versity of Minnesota, praised the
overall intent of New York’s study,
but said the results in this case
probably skew to a higher esti-
mate than is real because a survey
of grocery shoppers in a pandemic
would not be representative.
The sampling may dispropor-
tionately include those who have
either already had the illness, or
those who naturally tend to go out
more and so are more likely to be
exposed to the virus, he said. It
would miss children, teenagers
and older adults who may be shel-
tering in place.
“It’s not a criticism. It’s more of
a comment that we have to be
careful about interpreting super-
market customers as a represent-
ative sample when the state was
in lockdown,” he said.
said on Thursday. If that rate
proved consistent across the city,
that would mean that about 1.7
million people — or 12 times the
number of now confirmed cases
— have had it.
But in California, experts say,
the number of infected people is
most likely below 5 percent —
and as in other places where the
cases and deaths per capita is
lower, the size of the infected pop-
ulation is harder to gauge with
currently available rapid anti-
body tests.
Experts said it would take time
to develop, validate and deploy
antibody tests that are reliable,
and to understand their signifi-
cance when it comes to individ-
ual immunity.
“Yes, people will in this coun-
try be able to find out, but not to-
day,” said Eva Harris, a professor
of infectious diseases of the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley,
who is studying exposure to the
virus over time in the Bay Area.
Deaths from January and Feb-
ruary are also getting new scru-
tiny after an announcement this
week in Santa Clara County,
Calif., that a woman who died on
Feb. 6 had been found to have the
coronavirus. Her death occurred
weeks earlier than what had pre-
viously been thought to be the
first death in the United States
from the virus.
State officials said the test had
been calibrated to err on the side
of producing false negatives — to
miss some who may have antibod-
ies — rather than false positives,
which would suggest a person had
antibodies when they did not.
Health experts have worried
that if tests return high rates of
false positives, they could encour-
age people to abandon protective
measures and risk worsening the
virus’s spread. Others warn that
the true value of coronavirus anti-
bodies is still unknown.
The World Health Organization,
a United Nations agency, recom-
mends that antibody testing be
used only in research settings,
and not to make medical decisions
such as to permit an individual to
return to work. States and the fed-
eral government are not bound by
the organization’s advice.
“I’m very ambivalent about
these tests, because we don’t re-
ally know yet through the science
what it means to have an anti-
body,” said Dr. Joan Cangiarella,
the vice-chair of clinical opera-
tions at NYU Langone Health’s
pathology department.
“We are hoping these antibod-
ies mean you will be immune for
some time,” she said. “But I don’t
think the data is fully out there to
understand if that means that
you’re actually immune. And if
these antibodies start to decline,
what’s that time frame? Does it
decline in a year from now?”
Mr. Cuomo on Thursday did not
talk about any potential for immu-
JUAN ARREDONDO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Dr. Michelle Jorden, the Santa
Clara County Medical Examiner-
Coroner, said her office was inves-
tigating other deaths as well. Her
office has sent samples of suspi-
cious cases to the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention, and
some are still pending.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of Califor-
nia has said investigators were
looking at coroner and autopsy re-
ports going back to December in
Cough. Fever. Fatigue.
In January, it seemed
like just a bad bug.
some of the state’s counties to de-
termine if there might be other,
earlier deaths caused by the co-
ronavirus.
Experts said it would be diffi-
cult to distinguish, in hindsight,
between the seasonal flu and the
coronavirus.
In February, experts said, tests
were scarce and C.D.C. guide-
lines for administering them
were stringent, leaving all sorts
of unanswered questions now.
“There was this weird, uncom-
fortable silent period,” said Dr.
Sara Cody, the chief health officer
of Santa Clara County. “We were
HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
nity among those previously in-
fected.
But he did suggest, based on the
survey, that if as many as 2.7 mil-
lion New Yorkers had the virus,
the death rate in New York from
Covid-19 would most likely be far
lower than previously believed,
possibly 0.5 percent of those in-
fected.
More than 15,000 people have
died of the virus in the state, a fig-
ure that does not include an addi-
tional 5,000 people in New York
City who were never tested but
were presumed to have died from
the disease.
The number of deaths has been
increasing less quickly, and new
hospital admissions for the coro-
navirus have remained relatively
flat over the past three days:
about 1,350 patients per day, down
from over 2,000 per day last week.
More than 263,000 have tested
positive for infection.
Mr. Cuomo said antibody test-
ing results, along with hospitaliza-
tion numbers, would influence the
state’s reopening strategy, noting
that the number of people being
hospitalized was still too high to
consider easing restrictions.
The state’s plan would involve
tracking infections as restrictions
are loosened on gatherings and
businesses. Antibody testing
would be used, Mr. Cuomo said,
for identifying coronavirus sur-
vivors who can donate convales-
cent plasma — the part of the
blood that contains antibodies.
Doctors at the Mount Sinai Health
hearing about all these people
who were ill, but they didn’t meet
the test criteria so we weren’t
testing them.”
For those whose family mem-
bers have been sickened, the
gnawing question — was it
Covid-19? — lingers.
The family of Ian Carrier, 36,
has struggled to understand the
underlying illness that sent Mr.
Carrier to a hospital in San Fran-
cisco on Christmas Day with a fe-
ver and a severe cough. He spent
two months there, and was intu-
bated and put on a ventilator, be-
fore being released.
April Slone, Mr. Carrier’s sis-
ter, said that he had long grap-
pled with significant health is-
sues, but that doctors could not
explain his condition. He tested
negative for the flu.
“Every day it was something
new,” said Ms. Slone. “We could-
n’t figure it out.”
Then Ms. Slone read about a
link between the coronavirus and
kidney problems, an issue Mr.
Carrier had begun experiencing.
“That’s when the light bulb
went on,” Ms. Slone said. “I called
my parents and said, ‘I think he
had Covid’ and they said, ‘We do,
too.’”
This week, Mr. Carrier re-
turned to U.C.S.F. Parnassus hos-
pital for complications resulting
from the kidney problems, his
family said. They have been
seeking antibody testing for Mr.
Carrier, hoping that doctors will
learn whether he was exposed to
the virus in December, though it
is uncertain whether a test will
be available
Kristen Bole, a spokeswoman
for the hospital, declined to com-
ment on Mr. Carrier’s case but
said antibody tests were primari-
ly being used as a tool to improve
the diagnosis of patients with
current symptoms and for people
planning to donate plasma or
take part in vaccine trials.
In Oakland, Calif., Kevin F. Ad-
ler said he wonders now about
his grandfather, Jason Adler, 97,
who died on Feb. 2. A nursing
home director described his
death as tied to “respiratory is-
sues,” the younger Mr. Adler
said.
In the days after his death, Mr.
Adler said, another person in the
small nursing home died, and Mr.
Adler’s family members grew ill
with sore throats and fevers.
That has left the family wonder-
ing.
“It’s important to understand
how something like the coro-
navirus was potentially affecting
our communities, and especially
vulnerable groups, way before
there was a national understand-
ing of what was going on,” Mr.
Adler said. “In my family’s case,
it was just one person. But there
are likely hundreds of families
like us.”
A testing center in
Brownsville, Brooklyn. New
hospital admissions for the
virus have been relatively flat.
System in New York and else-
where have been testing this use
of plasma for treating patients
with the virus.
After the city’s alert appeared
on Wednesday night, the Greater
New York Hospital Association, a
powerful group with close ties to
the governor, sent its own mes-
sage to its member hospitals, sug-
gesting that the city’s warning
was overblown and highlighting
how it differed from the state
Health Department’s approach.
Susan C. Waltman, the associa-
tion’s general counsel, said the
tests are valuable for the informa-
tion they can provide about the vi-
rus, and contrasted the city’s “ab-
solute, rather dismissive terms”
with what she described as an ap-
proach from the state that “tries to
put the test results in perspec-
tive.”
Last week, Ms. Waltman, state
health officials, and a group of
senior doctors from 10 major aca-
demic and medical institutions
across the state submitted a re-
port to state health officials about
how to roll out antibody testing.
The discussions were led by Dr.
James Crawford, Northwell
Health’s senior vice president for
laboratory services. Dr. Crawford
said in an interview that as of this
week, the state’s major medical in-
stitutions estimated that they
could perform between 5,000 and
10,000 antibody tests per day.
They expect to increase that num-
ber significantly in the coming
weeks and months, he said.
Dr. Crawford said there was a
“pressing need to have both parts
of the equation — who has the vi-
rus and who has mounted an im-
mune response,” but he cautioned
against using antibody testing as
a criterion to allow people into the
world.
“To use it as a fulcrum for when
someone can travel or work,” he
said, “I think we have to be ex-
tremely careful as a society in do-
ing that.”

Tracking an Outbreak U.S. Response
TRANSMISSION
Major Cities Endured
Hidden Spread Earlier
Than Americans Knew
By BENEDICT CAREY
and JAMES GLANZ
By the time New York City con-
firmed its first case of the coro-
navirus on March 1, thousands of
infections were already silently
spreading through the city, a hid-
den explosion of a disease that
many still viewed as a remote
threat as the city awaited the first
signs of spring.
Hidden outbreaks were also
spreading almost completely un-
detected in Boston, San Fran-
cisco, Chicago and Seattle, long
before testing showed that each
city had a major problem, accord-
ing to a model of the spread of the
disease by researchers at North-
eastern University who shared
their results with The New York
Times.
Even in early February — while
the world focused on China — the
virus was not only likely to be
spreading in multiple American
cities, but also seeding blooms of
infection elsewhere in the United
States, the researchers found.
As political leaders grappled in
February with the question of
whether the outbreak would be-
come serious enough to order
measures like school closures and
remote work, little or no systemat-
ic testing for the virus was taking
place.
“Meanwhile, in the background,
you have this silent chain of trans-
mission of thousands of people,”
said Alessandro Vespignani, di-
rector of the Network Science In-
stitute at Northeastern Univer-
sity in Boston, who led the re-
search team.
Modeling the spread of a dis-
ease is inherently inexact, involv-
ing estimates of how often people
come in contact and transmit the
virus as they travel, work and so-
cialize. The model estimates all in-
fections, including those in people
who may experience mild or no
symptoms and those that are
never detected in testing.
Other disease researchers said
the findings of Dr. Vespignani’s
team were broadly in line with
their own analyses. The research
offers the first clear accounting of
how far behind the United States
was in detecting the virus. And the
findings provide a warning of
what can recur, the researchers
say, if social distancing restric-
tions are lifted too quickly.
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the di-
rector of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said last
week that American health offi-
cials had been successful in track-
ing the first known cases and their
contacts in the United States be-
fore the outbreak got out of con-
trol.
“Through Feb. 27, this country
only had 14 cases,” he said during
a briefing. “We did that isolation
and that contact tracing, and it
was very successful. But then,
when the virus more exploded, it
got beyond the public health ca-
pacity.”
But the new estimates of coro-
navirus infections are vastly
higher than those official counts.
By late February, as the world’s
attention shifted to a dire out-
break in Italy, those 14 known
American cases were a tiny frac-
tion of the thousands of undetect-
ed infections that the researchers
estimated were spreading from
person to person across this coun-
try.
And more cases may have been
arriving in the United States by
the day.
“Knowing the number of flights
coming into New York from Italy,
it was like watching a horrible
train wreck in slow motion,” said
Adriana Heguy, director of the Ge-
nome Technology Center at New
York University’s Grossman
School of Medicine.
Dr. Heguy’s team and another
at the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai have found through
genetic analysis that the seeds of
most infections in New York came
from multiple locations in Europe,
rather than directly from China.
“We weren’t testing, and if
you’re not testing you don’t know,”
Dr. Heguy said. The new esti-
mates suggesting that thousands
of infections were spreading si-
lently in the first months of the
year “don’t seem surprising at
all,” she said.
There are other signs that the
outbreak was worse at an earlier
point than previously known. This
week, health officials in Santa
Clara County, Calif., announced a
newly discovered coronavirus-
linked death on Feb. 6, weeks ear-
lier than what had been previ-
ously thought to be the first death
caused by the virus in the United
States.
Some scientists cautioned that
the new report’s estimates of an
enormous, unseen wave of infec-
tions could be too high — even
though testing surveillance
lagged at the time.
Source: Alessandro Vespignani,
Network Science Institute at
Northeastern University
Note: Numbers are median estimates
that researchers calculated for each city. The true
number of infections could have been substantially
higher or lower than shown here.
DEREK WATKINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Even with these corrections,
it’s still on the high side — this is
higher than I would have ex-
pected,” said Dr. Donald Burke, a
professor of epidemiology at the
University of Pittsburgh Gradu-
ate School of Public Health.
Others said that the findings
were in line with the fragmentary
evidence that had been available
until now. Lauren Ancel Meyers, a
professor of biology and statistics
at the University of Texas at
Austin, said that her own risk esti-
mates and most recent projec-
tions reveal a grim stealthiness of
early coronavirus spread.
“By the time you see a few
cases, it’s pretty certain that you
already have an outbreak under-
way,” Dr. Meyers said.
Dr. Vespignani’s approach mod-
els the outbreak over time based
on what is known about the virus
and where it has been detected. It
estimates the spread of the dis-
ease by simulating the move-
ments of individual people based
on where people fly, how they
move around, when they go to
school and other data. By running
the model under various condi-
tions — when schools are closed,
say — his team estimates where
the virus may have spread unde-
tected.
Unseen carriers of the disease,
many of them with mild symp-
toms or none at all, can still spread
the virus. For that reason, by the
time leaders in many cities and
states took action, it was already
too late to slow the initial spread.
A few cities with early out-
breaks, notably Seattle, are be-
lieved to have avoided enormous
growth later by heeding the mod-
els available at the time and tak-
ing action well ahead of the rest of
the country.
“We knew the numbers we saw
were just the tip of the iceberg,
and that there were much greater
numbers below the surface,”
Jenny A. Durkan, the mayor of Se-
attle, said in an interview. “We had
to act.”
City and state officials in New
York acted more slowly, waiting
until known cases were at a higher
level to shut down schools and is-
sue a stay-at-home order. Mayor
Bill de Blasio was reluctant to em-
brace shutdowns until mid-
March, citing the impact they
would have on vulnerable New
Yorkers.
“Even while we learn new
things about this virus almost
daily, one thing remains consis-
tent: New Yorkers were put at
risk by the federal government’s
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
BOSTON
2,300
SEATTLE
2,300
CHICAGO
3,300
SAN FRANCISCO
9,300
NEW YORK
10,700
infections
total failure to provide us with ad-
equate testing capability,” said the
mayor’s press secretary, Freddi
Goldstein.
In mid-February, a month be-
fore New York City schools were
closed, New York City and San
Francisco already had more than
600 people with unidentified infec-
tions, and Seattle, Chicago and
Boston already had more than 100
people, the findings estimate. By
March 1, as New York confirmed
its first case, the numbers there
may already have surpassed
10,000.
From these primary travel hubs
and a few other cities, the model
shows, the disease was then
spread to other locations in the
United States.
Dr. Vespignani said he and his
research team warned officials of
the silent spread, posting some of
their early projections in mid-Feb-
ruary. “We were talking to offi-
cials here, and it was the same re-
action we got in Italy, in the U.K.,
in Spain,” Dr. Vespignani said.
“They told me, ‘OK, that’s happen-
ing on your computer, not in reali-
ty.’ Look,” he added, “No one’s go-
ing to shut down a country based
on a model.”
The virus moved under the ra-
dar swiftly in February and
March, doctors and researchers
said, because few cities or states
had adequate surveillance sys-
tems in place. And testing, if it was
being done at all, was haphazard.
Emergency rooms were busy pre-
Drivers in Seattle last week being encouraged to get off the highway and stay home.
In five major U.S. cities,
as of March 1 there were only
23 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
But according to a new model,
there could have actually been about
28,000 infections in those cities by then.
‘We knew the
numbers we saw
were just the tip of
the iceberg, and that
there were much
greater numbers
below the surface.
We had to act.”
JENNY A. DURKAN,
the mayor of Seattle
paring for the predicted onslaught
and likely missed some early vi-
rus-related deaths, and did not
have the time or tools to verify in-
fections on the fly, experts said.
It was mid-March before teams
at N.Y.U. and Mount Sinai began
taking samples for testing in New
York.
The new findings from the mod-
el produce a range of possible out-
comes for when the virus may
have infected 10 people in each
city. In New York, for example, the
model shows that the first 10 in-
fected people could have been
walking the streets of the city as
early as the last week in January,
or as late as the middle of Febru-
ary. From there, the infections in
the centers of the outbreak grew
exponentially.
Trevor Bedford, an associate
professor at the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center and the
University of Washington in Se-
attle, said it became clear in late
February that “community trans-
mission” — an infectious outbreak
— was probably silently under-
way in Washington after a single
test result came back positive for
someone who had no symptoms.
Whatever the precise scale of
the initial outbreak, that same dy-
namic will accelerate once meas-
ures to mitigate the spread are re-
laxed without other public health
measures in place, Dr. Burke said.
“When you take away social dis-
tancing, everything will go right
through the roof,” he said.
RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
0N A17
Around
The U.S.
GRIM MILESTONE
California Reports
Deadliest Day So Far
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California
said on Thursday that the state
had experienced its “deadliest
day” since the start of the pan-
demic, with 115 coronavirus-
related deaths on Wednesday.
Then the Los Angeles County
Department of Public Health
reported 68 new deaths on Thurs-
day.
“Covid-19 is rapidly becoming
one of the leading causes of death
among L.A. County residents,”
Barbara Ferrer, the county’s
director of public health, said in a
statement.
According to The New York
Times’s tracking, there have been
about 1,500 deaths and 38,000
confirmed coronavirus cases in
the state.
Nonetheless, the White House
remains resolutely upbeat. “Hon-
estly, if you look at the trends
today, I think by Memorial Day
weekend we will largely have this
coronavirus epidemic behind us,”
Vice President Mike Pence pre-
dicted on Thursday on Geraldo
Rivera’s Cleveland radio show.
Mr. Newsom was more somber.
While he noted that hospitaliza-
tions and patients in intensive
care had decreased slightly from
the day before, he said the num-
ber of deaths should serve as a
warning that even as the weather
warms — tempting Californians
to flock to beaches or gather
outdoors — the virus remains an
insidious force.
“Let’s not dream of regretting,”
he said. “Stay home to the extent
possible.”
He also urged patience for local
leaders and other Californians
who had asked when the state
would ease orders to stay at
home. The state will first need to
significantly ramp up testing
capacity. Legions of contact trac-
ers are being trained to help track
and halt any outbreaks.
Still, Mr. Newsom on Wednes-
day announced a first modest
step in that direction: Hospitals
would again be scheduling what
are called elective procedures,
which can include medically
necessary procedures like tumor
removals.
SALE OF N95 MASKS
Questions About Deal
For Star of ‘Shark Tank’
Florida officials, desperate to find
N95 masks to protect health care
workers from the coronavirus,
arranged a deal last month from
an unusual source: Daymond
John, a star of the reality show
“Shark Tank” and a founder of the
street wear company Fubu. The
deal has since been scrapped. But
the company that makes the
masks, 3M, is now questioning
the arrangement.
Under the deal, the Florida
Division of Emergency Manage-
ment had agreed to pay The
Shark Group, Mr. John’s branding
and consulting firm, $7 million for
one million N95 masks — at $7
apiece, the price was more than
five times the list $1.27 price.
A spokesman for the Florida
attorney general said on Wednes-
day that the office did not have
enough information to comment
on the matter. In a statement on
Wednesday, Mr. John criticized
news media reports, saying he
“did not set any prices.”
‘A NATURAL LEADER’
Brother of Warren
Dies From Virus
Donald Reed Herring, the oldest
brother of Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, died on
Tuesday from Covid-19. He was
86. Ms. Warren confirmed Mr.
Herring’s death in a series of
tweets Thursday morning, calling
him “charming and funny, a natu-
ral leader.”
“What made him extra special
was his smile — quick and
crooked, it always seemed to
generate its own light, one that lit
up everyone around him,” Ms.
Warren wrote. “I’m grateful to the
nurses and front-line staff who
took care of him, but it’s hard to
know that there was no family to
hold his hand or to say ‘I love you’
one more time — and no funeral
for those of us who loved him to
hold each other close.”
A18
In Latakia, Syria, portraits of men who died fighting for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, top, whose opponents have fought him for nearly a decade.
In Land of Nuremberg, 2 Syrians’ War Crimes Trial Starts
One defendant was a colonel in
al-Assad’s ‘devilish apparatus.’
By BEN HUBBARD
BEIRUT, Lebanon — After her arrest
for protesting against the government in
Syria in 2011, Nouran Alghamian landed
in a notorious interrogation center,
locked in a bug-infested isolation cell so
small that she couldn’t lie down.
She begged to see the center’s com-
mander, Anwar Raslan, and pleaded for a
normal cell. Mr. Raslan laughed at her,
she said, and threw her back into isola-
tion.
“He is a criminal and he needs to be
tried,” Ms. Alghamian, 28, said by phone
from Switzerland, where she has politi-
cal asylum.
On Thursday, she got her wish, when
Mr. Raslan and another former Syrian
security officer went on trial in Germany
on charges of crimes against humanity
committed in the early days of Syria’s
civil war.
Legal campaigners have described the
case, in the Higher Regional Court in Ko-
blenz, as a breakthrough for interna-
tional efforts to hold perpetrators ac-
countable for the extensive abuses com-
mitted in the conflict.
Most efforts to prosecute Syrian offi-
cials in Europe have either been largely
symbolic indictments of high-level fig-
ures who remain in Syria or trials of low-
level soldiers.
So Mr. Raslan stands out as a former
colonel in a Syrian intelligence service of
the government of President Bashar al-
Assad, who has dismissed prosecutions
in non-Syrian courts as meaningless. Mr.
Raslan is the first high-ranking official to
be tried on such grave charges, and the
proceedings against him are the world’s
first to deal with state-sponsored torture
in Syria.
“It is important to show that the crimi-
nals will be tried, and the highest-rank-
ing of them,” said Anwar al-Bunni, a Syr-
ian lawyer who was arrested by Mr.
Raslan in 2005 and jailed for five years
for his human rights work. “This man is
not a cog in the machine, but an engine in
this devilish apparatus.”
But the case also raises stark ques-
tions about the limits of justice for Syria,
and who will be held accountable where.
After nine years of brutal warfare that
has killed hundreds of thousands of peo-
ple and scattered refugees across the
globe, there is no sign that Syria will be
referred to the International Criminal
Court in The Hague, the body set up to
deal with such cases. That is largely be-
cause Russia, a Syrian ally, has used its
seat on the United Nations Security
Council to veto such a move.
So now only two men are on trial in
Germany, far from where their accusers
say the crimes took place, while many
more senior perpetrators, including Mr.
Assad, remain in power.
Further complicating Mr. Raslan’s sta-
tus is his defection to the opposition in
2012, less than a year into the war. In
2014, he even joined the opposition dele-
gation to peace talks sponsored by the
United Nations in Geneva.
Some legal advocates fear that pros-
ecuting someone like Mr. Raslan could
dissuade other former Syrian officials
from serving as inside witnesses to help
build other cases because they might
fear facing trial themselves.
Others worry that a small number of
similar prosecutions could allow Euro-
pean governments to feel that they are
doing enough and dissuade them from
broader efforts to hold Mr. al-Assad and
Melissa Eddy contributed reporting from
Berlin.
OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
A drone image taken on Tuesday of a camp for internally displaced people in
northwest Syria. A German war crimes trial of Syrians could last three years.
his subordinates accountable.
“It is a good first step, an important
step, but it is not going to be sufficient to
fulfill the demands for justice of the Syr-
ian people,” said Mohammed Al Abdal-
lah, the director of the Syrian Justice and
Accountability Center, which is monitor-
ing the trial.
For Germany, the trial has become the
most important of several prosecuted
since 2002 on the principle of universal
jurisdiction, under which national courts
can try war crimes cases from elsewhere
in the world.
Previous trials have dealt with crimes
committed in Rwanda or the former
Yugoslavia, but the Syria case is the first
involving crimes against humanity
brought against officials from a govern-
ment that remains in power.
The idea for such proceedings goes
back to the Nuremberg trials, organized
by the Allies after World War II to pros-
ecute surviving members of the Nazi re-
gime.
Those trials were unique in their com-
prehensive analysis of the roles individu-
als played in the Nazi repression, from
doctors to soldiers to propagandists, said
Wolfgang Kaleck, a founding member of
the European Center for Constitutional
and Human Rights, which is represent-
ing victims in the Koblenz trial.
The war crimes division of Germany’s
A woman and a girl last week in the rubble of a building in the rebel-held town of Nairab, in the Idlib region of Syria.
federal prosecutor is taking a similar ap-
proach to Syria, Mr. Kaleck said, and has
amassed a body of evidence to help it un-
derstand the inner workings of Mr. As-
sad’s government in hopes that it will fa-
cilitate other trials of Syrian officials in
Europe.
“We have to be able to say this is how
the Syrian apparatus functioned and we
have to target these other columns of
power,” Mr. Kaleck said.
Mr. Raslan entered Germany in July
2014, and his co-defendant, Eyad al-
Gharib, in April 2018. The German au-
thorities arrested both men in February
2019 pending trial.
Contributing to the indictment itself
was years of work by a loose network of
organizations and Syrian activists who
have amassed piles of documents,
tracked down Syrian victims and ex-
plored ways to get their cases into Euro-
pean courts.
The case against Mr. Raslan, for exam-
ple, partly rests on documents collected
inside Syria that outline his role in the se-
curity services. And his arrest came af-
ter Mr. al-Bunni, the Syrian lawyer, spot-
ted him on the street in Germany, where
both men were refugees. Mr. al-Bunni
later tracked down Syrian witnesses
who had spent time in the interrogation
center Mr. Raslan oversaw.
According to a court statement about
MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
the trial issued last month, Mr. Raslan
stands accused of complicity in crimes
against humanity “in the context of an
extensive and systematic attack on the
civilian population.”
He served as the head of a Syrian intel-
ligence investigations unit that was re-
sponsible for security in and around the
capital, Damascus, and had its own pris-
on, the statement said.
That gave him oversight of the torture
of at least 4,000 detainees with methods
that included “brutal violence from beat-
ings, kicks and electric shocks” and at
least one case of rape and sexual assault,
the statement said. Detainees were de-
nied medical care, served inedible food
and packed into cells so crowded that
they could not lie down.
At least 58 people died because of ill
treatment during Mr. Raslan’s tenure,
the statement said.
His co-defendant, Mr. al-Gharib,
worked for Mr. Raslan and stands ac-
cused of aiding and abetting crimes
against humanity, the statement said.
Mr. al-Gharib rounded up at least 30
protesters and bused them to the interro-
gation center; many were beaten on the
way and tortured once inside, the court
statement said.
International legal experts watching
the trial acknowledged that it in no way
matches the scale of the violence com-
mitted by the Syrian government during
the war. To crush the rebels seeking to
push Mr. al-Assad from power, his forces
have destroyed civilian neighborhoods,
used chemical weapons and built an ar-
chipelago of prisons and torture centers
across the country.
But legal advocates hope the trial,
which is expected to last two to three
years, will provide a measure of closure
for victims, pave the way for future pros-
ecutions and warn officials in Syria and
other oppressive states that their turn in
the dock could be coming.
“The overriding message to all mem-
bers of the regime in Syria and all over
the world is that you can’t be safe,” said
Stefanie Bock, director of the Interna-
tional Research and Documentation
Center for War Crimes Trials at the Uni-
versity of Marburg in Germany. “If you
are engaged in certain serious human
rights violations, there is always a dan-
ger that you will be held accountable lat-
er. It may be a small risk, but there is a
risk.”
KHALIL ASHAWI/REUTERS
FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
U.S. Aid Offer
To Greenland
Prompts Praise
And Suspicion
By MARTIN SELSOE SORENSEN
COPENHAGEN — Denmark said no
emphatically when President Trump ex-
pressed interest last year in purchasing
Greenland, but the Danish government
doesn’t mind if Greenland, its semiauton-
omous territory, gets a little help from
the United States.
The U.S. has agreed to provide Green-
land with $12.1 million in economic sup-
port, the nation’s government an-
nounced on Thursday, a move that some
in Copenhagen met with wariness and
anger, in light of the interest President
Trump expressed last year in purchasing
the vast mineral-rich island, which con-
tains 10 percent of the world’s fresh wa-
ter.
The president last summer abruptly
canceled a planned state visit to Den-
mark after reports he had urged his
aides to explore the possibility of buying
Greenland prompted Danish Prime Min-
ister Mette Frederiksen to declare his in-
terest “an absurd discussion” — a re-
sponse that Mr. Trump deemed “nasty.”
That saga colored some reactions
when the U.S. ambassador to Denmark,
Carla Sands, published a statement on
Monday hailing the importance of the
Arctic region and promising “a substan-
tial package of economic support funds
to help jump-start growth in Greenland.”
Mostly of the aid will be given in the
form of American advisory and consul-
tancy services, used to “benefit the eco-
nomic development of Greenland, in-
cluding the mineral industry, tourism
and education,” according to a statement
issued on Thursday by the Greenlandic
government.
Many of the Danish government’s al-
lies and opponents have objected to the
plan. Soren Espersen of the far-right
Danish People’s Party on Wednesday de-
nounced it as “insulting,” telling the
news site Altinget that such economic
support was “for developing countries.”
On the left, the Greenland spokesman
of the Socialist People’s Party, Karsten
Honge, called the plan “extremely pro-
vocative,” and described it as an attempt
to “put lice in the fur coat” of the island’s
relationship with Denmark, according to
Altinget. A conservative lawmaker, Ras-
mus Jarlov, also accused the United
States of “clearly undermining” Den-
mark-Greenland relations.
But Denmark’s minister of foreign af-
fairs, Jeppe Kofod, said on Thursday that
Denmark wants Greenland to have a mu-
tually beneficial relationship with the
United States. “It’s no secret that we’ve
worked for a long time with Greenland to
make sure Greenland sees a benefit from
the U.S. presence,” he said, adding that it
was now up to Greenland’s government
and the US to decide how they want to
spend the money.
But Mr. Kofod declined to comment on
the backlash against the aid.
“I’m not going to speak about people’s
concerns,” he said. “People are free to
have them.”
Earlier in the week, reactions among
Greenlandic lawmakers were split.
Some were suspicious over the fine
print of the plan. “We need to clarify if
they pay today and we’ll be in debt to-
morrow,” said Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a
Greenlandic member of the Danish Par-
liament.
But many were positive. Greenlandic
lawmaker, Aki-Matilda Hoegh-Dam, said
she found the negative responses baf-
fling. “It’s a fantastic opportunity,” she
said of the American package, adding
she hoped it would “strengthen human
capital” in Greenland.
“This good news confirms that our
work on building a constructive relation-
ship with the United States is fruitful,”
Kim Kielsen, the island’s premier, said.
On Monday, Ms. Sands said the United
States was merely seeking to bolster its
support for “a secure and stable Arctic,”
in response to Russia and China’s grow-
ing ambitions in the region.
“The United States wants to be the
partner of choice in the Arctic, and we
hope to achieve this partnership through
direct U.S. engagement that sustainably
accelerates development and prosperity
in the region,” she said.
Greenland, long ago settled by
Vikings, has more than a millennium of
shared and sometimes troubled history
with Denmark. It now has a population of
56,000 and is self-governing except in
matters of foreign affairs and defense,
with significant local support for greater
independence. It receives $740 million
annually from the Danish government.
Greater U.S. support could allow the
island to reduce that reliance on Copen-
hagen. But Mr. Trump’s talk of a pur-
chase last year prompted outrage.
“Greenland is not for sale and cannot be
sold,” Mr. Kielsen said at the time.
And relations between Greenland and
the U.S. were cool even before that, ac-
cording to Ms. Chemnitz Larsen, the law-
maker. She cited disputes related to the
air base at Thule, in northwestern
Greenland, where local firms have lost
contracts worth over $400 million in re-
cent years, and over cleanup at other,
closed U.S. military facilities, including
one that had nuclear waste.
Lara Jakes contributed reporting from
Washington.
FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 A19
N

Corner Office? Try a Closet Office, With Chores and Child Care
The coronavirus crisis is forcing
women to rewrite the “lean in”
playbook for a successful career.

By JENNIFER MEDINA
and LISA LERER
LOS ANGELES — As soon as she be-
gan planning to work from home, Saba
Lurie knew she would need to make ma-
jor adjustments in how she operates her
private psychotherapy practice, from
counseling patients through a screen to
managing her staff remotely.
She also quickly realized that because
her husband earns a higher salary, the
bulk of the domestic work would fall on
her.
The irritations added up quickly: Her
bathroom became an emergency office.
“It’s the one place I can close the door
and lock it,” she said. Her husband, unac-
customed to balancing his workday
schedule with hers, forgot to tell her
about some of his conference calls, leav-
ing Ms. Lurie scrambling to figure out
how to tend to their two daughters, ages
4 and 1.
Her practice, which she spent years
building, has been pushed aside.
“The responsibility to deal is on me,”
Ms. Lurie said. And many of her clients
have told her the same thing. “What I am
hearing is that we as women are going to
be the ones to set boundaries or establish
a plan.”
Ms. Lurie and her clients are part of a
generation of professional women who
had arranged their domestic lives, how-
ever precariously, to enable full-time ca-
reers and parenthood. They are facing
this crisis in the midst of high-intensity
parenting years, and a crucial moment
for growing and establishing their work.
Now they’re able to set up shop remotely,
but with schools closed and child care
gone, the pandemic is forcing them to
confront the bruising reality of gender
dynamics as the country is trapped at VIA AIREKA MUSE
home. Aireka Muse, a TV writer in Los Angeles, shares a one-bedroom apartment with her 6-month-old and husband. She sometimes works from her parked car.
Even before the coronavirus crisis,
women spent about four hours a day on
unpaid work like laundry, grocery shop-
ping and cleaning, compared with about
2.5 hours for men, according to data from
the Organization for Economic Coopera-
tion and Development. That labor has
expanded exponentially in recent weeks,
as Americans home-school their chil-
dren and help older family members and
friends more vulnerable to the virus.
In interviews with more than a dozen
women who work as lawyers, writers, ar-
chitects, teachers, nurses and nonprofit
administrators, many said that they
were grateful to have some child care
help pre-quarantine, and that they could
work from home. But they have been
slightly stunned to learn that they are ex-
pected to organize and manage every do-
mestic need for their family, while main-
taining a full-time professional career as
part of a dual-career couple. ANDY BALDWIN
It was feminism of earlier generations, Candace Valenzuela and her 1-year-old son videoconferencing in her bath-
after all, that declared “the personal is
political.” So the fact that the crisis hit af-
room turned office. Ms. Valenzuela is taking care of her two boys and a sick
ter stinging political defeats for female mother-in-law in addition to running a political campaign. Left, Saba Lurie’s
presidential candidates adds to the un- daughters watched a yoga video while Ms. Lurie, a psychotherapist, worked.
comfortable reckoning for many Demo- VIA SABA LURIE
cratic women — even if they had decided
themselves that the most viable way to and hospitality industry. In both fields, feminism back to the “1950s with women mother to three children, was trying to
defeat President Trump was to support a women are paid less than their male ‘The way we’ve been able to stuck at home.” keep up with the distance learning re-
male candidate. peers, according to research by the Eco- MacGyver a career as a woman Many friends and colleagues, she said, quirements for three different grades.
When Elizabeth Warren dropped out nomic Policy Institute. is completely under attack by a have put professional projects on hold “When the email says, ‘Make sure
of the presidential race, Gretchen New- “I hope we rethink a lot of structures because their husbands have the higher your student does A,’ I don’t even know
som sat in her car and burst into tears. after this,” said Candace Valenzuela, a global pandemic.’ income. Research shows that women which student they’re talking about,” she
Six weeks later, Ms. Warren backed her Democratic congressional candidate CANDACE VALENZUELA, with children often face a significant said. “It was overwhelming.”
A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE
onetime political rival Joseph R. Biden from the suburbs of Dallas. “My hope is FROM TEXAS WHO’S NOW WORKING AT HOME
drop in earnings after having a child, but Ms. Porter is trying to channel some of
Jr., and Ms. Newsom is working, parent- that coming out of this crisis we rethink there is no similar drop for men. her frustration into political action, rais-
ing and teaching as a single mother. And compensation for both women and for “Of course their husbands make more ing alarms about the level of stimulus
as the political director for the San Diego people who traditionally get minimum- money than they do — because of the payments disbursed to single parents
chapter of the International Brother- wage work.” much of the household duties since she wage gap,” Ms. Howard said. “It’s a cycle and pushing for legislation that would
hood of Electrical Workers, she is strug- Until March, Ms. Valenzuela spent began her campaign last year. Still, she of despair.” expand the amount employees can put in
gling around the clock to answer fearful hours calling donors from her campaign said: “The way we’ve been able to Mac- The new set of challenges comes as tax-free dependent care accounts.
questions from union members. headquarters. Now, she is at home car- Gyver a career as a woman is completely more American families are likely to be Amy Pompeii, 46, has managed to jug-
“It is kind of a slap in the face, we’re ing for her sons, ages 4 and 1. Her under attack by a global pandemic.” dependent on a female breadwinner. gle working as a nurse at the Ohio State
doing all of this and yet we have so little mother-in-law, who lives with the family The crisis has become a moment for Mothers are the primary or sole earners University Wexner Medical Center with
representation,” she said. and often helps with the children, has some to reconsider how much progress for 40 percent of households with chil- being a single mother since her husband
While the political disappointment fallen ill, and though it is uncertain if the has taken place on a societal level. dren under 18 today, compared with 18 died nearly a decade ago. With her
may be most acute among liberal wom- coronavirus is the culprit, she is quaran- Ms. Lurie, the therapist, recalled the percent in 1987. Nearly a quarter of fam- daughter, a college sophomore, now at
en, the bargain is bipartisan. Indeed, it is tined in a different part of the house. With day she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, ilies are headed by a single mother, the home, Ms. Pompeii has help to care for
the kind of “lean in” feminism embraced space at a premium, Ms. Valenzuela holding her year-old daughter. Since second most common family arrange- her 10-year-old son.
by people like Ivanka Trump, the presi- cleared her curling iron off the counter, then, she said, “it has just been having to ment in America after living with two “A lot of my co-workers do not have
dent’s daughter — whose 2017 book brought in a yoga ball and turned her recalibrate, recalibrate and recalibrate. parents. that luxury,” she said. So far, the hospital
“Women Who Work” essentially told bathroom into a makeshift office for the What I promised my daughters isn’t Aireka Muse, a television writer in Los where she works has not been inundated
women to get enough help to do it all — foreseeable future. something I can deliver and that’s such a Angeles who gave birth to her first child with patients battling the virus, but her
that is facing perhaps one of the most jar- Ms. Valenzuela considers herself painful thing to consider.” six months ago, has taken to working on children still worry. “We are all under a
ring shifts. It’s also an economic strug- lucky because her children are young Dori Howard, who helps run a wom- her latest project from her parked car. very stressful situation, but the men I
gle, long clear in the lives of women who enough that she is avoiding home school. en’s co-working space in Los Angeles, The other day, she said, when she walked work with, for the most part, they go
earn lower wages, that feminist political And her husband had already taken on said she viewed the pandemic as sending back up to the family’s one-bedroom home and decompress, do something to
leaders have criticized for years. apartment, her husband asked, “When clear their mind,” Ms. Pompeii said. “We
“It’s like our economy is this house of are you going to be done?” don’t get to do that.”
cards for women and it is just toppling “For him there was a limit to the time In therapy sessions with his clients
down,” says Cecile Richards, a founder of and a box for being more responsible for over the past few weeks, Avi Klein has
SuperMajority, a new political organiza- our child,” she said. “But me taking care heard all sorts of domestic frustrations
tion aimed at energizing female voters. of my son is not circumstantial. I’m never — a divorced father desperate to see
“All of the structural problems that we’ve going to be done — there’s always going more of his children, a high-salaried hus-
all known intellectually you can now see to be another project and there is always band who is trying to carve out time for
in pretty much every woman’s daily life.” going to be my son.” his wife’s graduate studies, and women
Now, those who are able to work from Ms. Muse has some hope that the whose less flexible jobs are taking prece-
home have created new offices in cars, quarantine experience — and the up- dence over their partners’. But among
spare closets and, like Ms. Lurie, bath- close look at parenting, professional heterosexual couples, the most common
rooms. Millions of others, like nurses and work and keeping everyone fed and scenario is that women are taking on the
home health aides, find themselves on healthy — could shift some men’s per- emotional and care-taking labor, accord-
the front lines of battling the virus, facing spectives, especially those who identify ing to Mr. Klein, whose client base is
serious health risks. And with women as feminist but might not be first in line to male and whose own wife takes care of
making up nearly two-thirds of min- call the pediatrician. their three children while he runs his
imum-wage jobs, a majority in the serv- “At least for my husband, they are practice out of the family’s home in New
ice industry, many have lost their income more hyperaware of the work that their Paltz, N.Y.
entirely. wives have been doing, and something Mostly, Mr. Klein said, people remain
According to the Bureau of Labor Sta- has got to give,” she said. “Instead of just in survival mode: “What everyone is do-
tistics, more than one-third of working running on automatic pilot, I wonder if it ing is impossible and crazy.” But when-
women, compared with just 15.7 percent is eye-opening for them?” ever the chaos subsides, he said, “this
of working men, are employed in two in- Last month, Representative Katie has to reshape our views of gender in a
dustries that have been significantly af- Porter, a freshman Democrat from Cali- meaningful way.”
fected by the virus: the health care and fornia, found herself trying to self-quar- “To spend this much time at home, to
social assistance industry and the leisure antine in her bedroom after exposure to have this experience of taking care of a
VIA SABA LURIE
the virus, while spending around seven family will change us,” he added. “We
Jennifer Medina reported from Los Ange- Ms. Lurie set up an emergency work space in the bathroom of her Los Ange- hours each day on conference calls. At will have to all have a better sense of
les, and Lisa Lerer from Washington. les home. “It’s the one place I can close the door and lock it,” she explained. the same time, Ms. Porter, a single what we are asking our partners to do.”
A20 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Detained at the Border
As Minors, Then Jailed
On Their 18th Birthday
By ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS
WASHINGTON — Isaac, a 17-
year-old Guatemalan, crossed the
U.S. border nearly eight months
ago and was detained as a minor
by the U.S. Office of Refugee Re-
settlement, long before the novel
coronavirus existed.
As his 18th birthday ap-
proached last month, it appeared
he would be released to a Texas
shelter where the director prom-
ised that the teenager would be
“provided counseling and re-
ferred for any medical assistance
he may require” for high blood
pressure, severe anxiety and, if
necessary, Covid-19, should the vi-
rus reach the shelter.
Instead, on the day he became
an adult in the eyes of the U.S. gov-
ernment, agents from Immigra-
tion and Customs Enforcement
swooped in and shipped him to the
Otero County Processing Center
in El Paso, where he says he
sleeps arm’s distance away from
dozens of other immigrants.
“I have no doctor. I have medi-
cation but it is one given to me in
the previous shelter, when I was a
minor,” said Isaac, who asked to
be identified only by his middle
name for fear of retaliation.
Around 32,000 migrants remain
in custody on civil charges as ICE
faces growing pressure to address
the health concerns posed by the
spreading coronavirus, including
scores like Isaac who were ini-
Migrants ‘age out’
into centers at high
risk in the pandemic.
tially taken into custody as mi-
nors, then held long enough to age
into the adult detention center. As
of Wednesday night, ICE had con-
firmed 287 cases of the virus
among detainees and 35 cases
among staff members.
This year, lawyers representing
two migrants argued in a class-ac-
tion suit that the Department of
Homeland Security and ICE had
violated a statute that mandates
how migrant children should be
protected by relying on dubious
technology and the discretion of
individual local field offices. As a
result, instead of minors going to a
group home, they are ending up in
ICE jails.
The administration’s system of
deciding where to place such “age
outs” exemplifies the extent of
President Trump’s hard-line im-
migration policies. Those moves
include an executive order signed
on Wednesday that restricts legal
immigration into the United
States and obscure procedural
maneuvers like age-out deten-
tions that not only limit opportuni-
ties to claim refuge in the country
but also could expose a vulnerable
population to the pandemic. The
Education Department this week
even prohibited higher education
institutions from offering emer-
gency assistance to undocument-
Kitty Bennett contributed re-
search.
Trump Turns Up Heat on Immigration, but Latino Voters Stay Tepid on Biden
By JENNIFER MEDINA
LOS ANGELES — There’s talk
of protecting the country from the
“Invisible Enemy” by temporarily
blocking people from receiving
green cards. New footage of the
construction of the southern bor-
der wall is available to stream on-
line from a government website. If
there was any doubt, this week
made it clear: President Trump is
making his anti-immigration mes-
sage a cornerstone of his re-elec-
tion campaign.
And yet Latino voters are not,
so far, indicating they will turn out
in decisive numbers for former
Vice President Joseph R. Biden
Jr., who is counting on their sup-
port to win key swing states in-
cluding Arizona, Florida and
Pennsylvania. New polling indi-
cates that 45 percent of Latinos
approve of the president’s han-
dling of the coronavirus.
While Mr. Biden remains the
choice of the majority of regis-
tered Hispanic voters, at 59 per-
cent, Mr. Trump is the choice of 22
percent, according to a poll re-
leased Friday by Latino Deci-
sions, a Los Angeles-based Demo-
cratic polling firm. Though the
polling was conducted before his
most recent statements and ac-
tions on immigration and the coro-
navirus, it is the latest evidence
that Mr. Trump maintains steady
support from a significant slice of
Latino voters. Several polls of La-
tinos in battleground states have
consistently shown Mr. Trump re-
ceiving slightly more than 20 per-
cent of the votes.
The poll also shows that enthu-
siasm for Mr. Biden seems to be
slipping — he was favored by 67
percent of registered Latino vot-
ers in February.
ed students who were brought to
the United States as children and
are currently protected from de-
portation.
The coronavirus has re-ener-
gized the president’s immigration
efforts, even as it brings new scru-
tiny. A federal judge in California
this week ordered ICE to review
the cases of detainees at high risk
of catching the virus, including
those over the age of 55.
But the coronavirus has also
amplified concerns over the al-
ready contentious — and possibly
illegal — practice of moving
young migrants like Isaac on their
18th birthday from relatively be-
nign shelters managed by the De-
partment of Health and Human
Services’ Office of Refugee Reset-
tlement into the Department of
Homeland Security’s ICE deten-
tion centers.
While the safest option for the
teenagers would be to be released
to a sponsor, immigration lawyers
say the shelters and group homes
would provide more space and
care than the detention facilities,
where they say the young mi-
grants would be mixed with an-
other contingent population and
be exposed to the virus, as well as
psychological harm.
“Our clients are terrified of the
prospect of being transferred to a
secured detention facility with
large numbers of people in close,
confined settings, which is in di-
rect contravention with C.D.C.’s
advice on how to save oneself
from this pandemic,” said Antho-
ny Enriquez, the director of the
unaccompanied minors program
at Catholic Charities, who is repre-
senting another teenager in New
York who in recent weeks was
handcuffed by ICE agents on his
18th birthday and moved to a de-
tention center.
“This is a real recipe for a hu-
manitarian disaster,” Mr. En-
riquez said.
Beyond the health risks are le-
gal questions: A federal judge in
the District of Columbia will soon
rule on whether the Trump admin-
istration’s age-out effort violates
the law.
By choosing to detain teenagers
instead of releasing them to group
homes or sponsors, lawyers ar-
gue, the administration has vio-
lated the Trafficking Victims Pro-
tection Reauthorization Act,
which requires the government to
consider “the least restrictive set-
ting available” to the migrants.
In Houston, ICE agents placed
97 percent of teenagers trans-
ferred from the resettlement of-
fice’s custody into detention cen-
ters as opposed to group homes,
according to an analysis of gov-
ernment data from October 2018
to May 2019 submitted during
trial. In Miami it was 96 percent
and in El Paso 80 percent.
Lawyers for young detainees
said the government had proved it
did not have to happen that way.
An ICE agent from the San Anto-
nio field office, where placement
statistics are considerably better,
testified during the trial that if the
resettlement office had not
matched a teenager with a spon-
sor, he would find a group home
that would take the migrant in.
ICE agents in San Antonio placed
A Latinos for Trump meeting last year; 22 percent of Latinos say they plan to vote for the president.
“Even as Trump is continuing
this immigrant bashing, these vot-
ers are not blaming him for what
is going on in the country right
now — they are giving him the
benefit of the doubt,” said Matt
Barreto, who runs the polling
firm. “There is an enthusiasm
deficit — people are losing their
jobs, losing their health care, los-
ing their house, and they are not
hearing how the Democratic
Party is trying to solve that.”
Latinos are expected to be the
largest nonwhite ethnic voting
bloc this fall, and Democrats have
made it clear that they believe
ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
just 2.6 percent of young migrants
into detention facilities as op-
posed to releasing them to group
homes or sponsors between Octo-
ber 2018 and May 2019.
“We don’t detain our age-outs,”
the ICE officer, Jose Munguia, tes-
tified.
April Grant, a spokeswoman for
ICE, declined to comment on the
details of the continuing litigation.
Ms. Grant said that when deciding
whether to detain migrants who
were aging out, the agency con-
sidered whether they were flight
risks or dangers to themselves or
the community, as well as whether
an alternative space was avail-
able.
While such transfers occurred
in previous administrations, the
Trump administration is using a
rigged system that ensures immi-
grants in certain parts of the coun-
try will be detained when they
turn 18, said Stephen Patton, one
of the lead lawyers in the trial liti-
gated by the National Immigrant
Justice Center and Kirkland & El-
lis in the District of Columbia.
ICE’s computerized “risk classifi-
cation assessment” system allows
agents to enter a migrant’s infor-
mation, then recommends deten-
tion or release.
But according to court docu-
ments, the agency tweaked the
tool in August 2017 to eliminate
the option of release, leaving only
the recommendations of “detain”
or “supervisor to determine.”
record turnout from the group will
help them recapture the White
House. Before the pandemic,
many operatives said they were
seeing unprecedented levels of
engagement and excitement from
Latinos, in part driven by anger
over what they view as the Trump
administration’s damaging mes-
sages and policy on immigration.
But many Latino operatives
have repeatedly warned Demo-
crats not to take these voters for
granted. Presuming that anger
with the Trump administration
will easily translate into a victory
for Mr. Biden is a mistake, they
A worksheet requiring ICE
agents to document their consid-
erations for alternatives to deten-
tion did not include a space to de-
tail the potential shelters avail-
able. Agents are left with two op-
tions: “detain” or “not detain.”
“There was not a shred of evi-
dence that releasing these kids
caused any problems or finding
sponsors for them was an undue
burden,” Mr. Patton said. “They
could comply if they wanted to,
and if they do comply almost ev-
eryone gets released.”
Another issue with resettling
minors has been the Trump ad-
ministration’s efforts to require
sponsors to provide fingerprints
to the government. That has dis-
couraged immigrant relatives
from coming forward to claim mi-
nors in custody, immigration ad-
vocates say.
In the 2019 fiscal year, 2,055 mi-
grants were transferred to ICE
custody, nearly double the 1,091 in
the 2017 fiscal year, according to
the Health and Human Services
Department. Mark Weber, a de-
partment spokesman, said more
than 140 young migrants had been
handed over to ICE in 2020, but
that is a small percentage of the
children who cross the border
each year and most are eventually
matched with sponsors.
Mr. Weber said the department
grappled with the most border
crossings in more than a decade
last year and was still able to place
SAMUEL CORUM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
say. The concern, they argue, is an
enthusiasm gap — less that Lati-
nos will turn to Mr. Trump, but
that they won’t vote at all. In a poll
from late February, 73 percent of
Latino voters said they were “al-
most certain” to vote in Novem-
ber. Two months later, that num-
ber has dropped to 60 percent.
“I don’t want anybody to take
the Latino community of this
country for granted, and we tend
to do that,” said Henry Muñoz, a
former Democratic Party official
who helped start Somos, a net-
work of health professionals in
New York City, and who paid for
An ICE center in Adelanto, Calif., where Jose Hernandez Ve-
lasquez, who was mistakenly classified as an adult, was held un-
til being freed this month. Sulma Hernandez Alfaro, left, was re-
leased from jail six days before she was granted asylum in 2018.
72,593 children with sponsors. He
said “a special effort” was made to
release the children before they
turn 18.
Ms. Grant, the ICE spokeswom-
an, declined to say how many of
the migrants who turned 18 and
were transferred to ICE custody
were placed into a group home by
the deportation agency.
The agency has also resisted
calls for the widespread releases
of migrants as the coronavirus ap-
proached, though nearly 700 have
been released during the pan-
demic. Matthew T. Albence, the
acting director of ICE, told the
House Oversight Committee last
week that such a move would be a
“huge pull factor” and create a
“rush at the borders,” according to
a statement from the committee.
The agency said in a statement
that it was continuing to consider
releasing immigrants to “alterna-
tives to detention options.”
Those who have aged into the
ICE detention centers say the vi-
rus has only added to concerns
that include threats from fellow
detainees, poor treatment by the
staff and a lack of medical re-
sources.
Sulma Hernandez Alfaro, who
fled to the border to escape abu-
sive relatives in Honduras, said
she was confused when ICE
agents showed up at the govern-
ment shelter where she was stay-
ing in San Benito, Texas, in 2017.
She had already been told by the
staff that she would be released to
a nearby group home, La Posada
Providencia, when she turned 18.
Her lawyers’ pleas to ICE to re-
lease her to the group home went
unanswered, according to court
filings.
She said she was threatened by
other detainees and treated
poorly by the detention center’s
staff. On one occasion, a guard
yelled at her when she asked for a
tampon. When she asked for a
spare change of clothes, she was
scolded.
the poll. “Latinos don’t vote be-
cause they don’t believe that any-
one in office has their back. They
don’t think that if they vote or if
they organize, that anything that
happens will impact their family.”
Many Latino leaders have
urged Mr. Biden’s campaign to
learn from Senator Bernie Sand-
ers. His primary campaign at-
tracted widespread enthusiasm
from Latino voters, particularly
among young voters and in the
West, where he won the California
and Nevada nominating contests.
The Sanders campaign invested
early and heavily in attracting La-
tino voters, drawing on activists
with longstanding ties to their lo-
cal communities.
Despite Mr. Trump’s relentless
focus on immigration, the issue
was never seen as a top priority
for Democrats during the prima-
ry. Though the candidates roundly
criticized the administration’s
policies on family separations,
few clearly articulated how they
would handle vexing immigration
policy questions as president. Im-
migration activists complained
and interrupted several debates
to draw more attention to the is-
sue, and criticized Mr. Biden for
his role in the Obama administra-
tion, which deported more than
2.5 million immigrants.
Marisa Franco, the executive
director of Mijente, a Latino group
that endorsed Mr. Sanders in the
primary and has yet to officially
back Mr. Biden, said she wanted to
see the campaign do more to at-
tract grass-roots support.
“What the Sanders campaign
really did was bring people in,
who then went back into the
neighborhoods where they are
from, where they are trusted, and
CHRIS CARLSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“She just yelled at me and said I
should just wash it in the sink be-
cause that’s why I have hands,”
Ms. Alfaro said.
A court ordered Ms. Alfaro’s re-
lease in May 2018, six days before
she was granted asylum.
Those are the same protections
Jose Hernandez Velasquez hoped
to obtain when he crossed the bor-
der in 2017.
Mr. Velasquez was erroneously
moved from the custody of the Of-
fice of Refugee Resettlement as a
17-year-old after he was given a
dental exam that mistakenly de-
termined he was an adult, accord-
ing to his lawyers, who later ob-
tained a birth certificate proving
he was a minor. By then he had al-
ready spent 10 months in a maxi-
mum-security detention center.
Such dental assessments are sup-
posed to be used to determine
ages only in conjunction with
other evidence.
“They told me that I was over
the age and I wasn’t a minor even
though I pleaded with them that I
was. They just took me away,” Mr.
Velasquez said in a February tele-
phone interview from the Ade-
lanto detention center in Califor-
nia.
He was placed back into a de-
tention facility when he turned 18.
In addition to facing threats from
other detainees, he said he devel-
oped depression and hyperten-
sion while detained.
A federal judge this month or-
dered Mr. Velasquez to be re-
leased after his lawyers said in
court filings that he was “vulnera-
ble to serious disease” and that
there was danger of the coro-
navirus spreading “uncontrolla-
bly with devastating results” in
the detention center.
Mr. Velasquez is now quarantin-
ing himself as a precaution. But
before he went to self-isolate in
Los Angeles, he asked his lawyer
to stop by the beach. He had not
seen the ocean in nearly three
years.
made a pitch that is much more
compelling,” Ms. Franco said. “I
think that’s what the Biden cam-
paign hasn’t done and that’s
something they will have to really
grapple with.”
The Trump campaign has fre-
quently said that it plans to reach
out to Latino voters, particularly
in more conservative areas. Even
small inroads among those voters
could help the campaign win
states like Texas and Florida.
“Many Latinos support Presi-
dent Trump because they under-
stand that his policies actually
help families like theirs,” said Ali
Pardo, a spokeswoman for the
campaign.
Of course, no campaign in mod-
ern history has taken place in a
pandemic. Political organizers are
trying to figure out how to adapt
as people struggle with their own
needs. And while Mr. Trump is
holding daily TV briefings, Mr. Bi-
den is still figuring out how to
break through to voters broadly.
“Right now, President Trump is
failing to give Americans the lead-
ership they demand to solve the
dual public health and economic
crises that we are facing — which
are hitting communities of color
especially hard — and this poll
shows that Latinos are paying at-
tention,” said Cristóbal Alex, a
senior Biden adviser.
Mr. Barreto said of the presi-
dent, “Latino communities are be-
ing devastated right now, and
Democrats have the chance to an-
nihilate him on this.”
He added, “I think the worry for
the Democrats is the perception
that he appears to be managing is
going unchallenged, and the long-
er that happens, the more damag-
ing it is.”

In Wisconsin, Virus Creates New Front in a Decade-Long Partisan War
By REID J. EPSTEIN
Wisconsin had barely finished
its fight over whether to hold an
election in the middle of the coro-
navirus pandemic before Ameri-
ca’s foremost battleground state
began another political brawl over
the pandemic itself.
Officials from both parties
rushed to familiar corners this
week, with Democrats rallying be-
hind Gov. Tony Evers’s decision to
extend the state’s stay-home ordi-
nance through May 26, while Re-
publicans are stoking anger over
what they depict as an assault on
civil liberties.
Wisconsin’s decade-long parti-
san war will once again be on dis-
play Friday, as right-wing pro-
testers prepare to mass outside
the State Capitol in Madison to as-
sail Mr. Evers and the restrictions
he put in place to curb the spread
of the virus. Thousands of people
have indicated on Facebook that
they will attend, making it poten-
tially the largest gathering so far
in a nationwide series of protests
against stay-at-home restrictions.
Republicans, in need of a show
of force after badly losing a State
Supreme Court contest this
month, have sued Mr. Evers to
block the extension, discussed re-
moving his public health secre-
tary and, in recent days, amplified
protesters’ calls to reopen the
state while covertly helping to co-
ordinate the Madison rally and
other satellite gatherings across
the state.
The planned protests on Friday,
along with smaller events last
weekend, have focused attention
on the thorny issues governors
face as they grapple with the deci-
sion over when to ease restric-
tions, with President Trump alter-
nately encouraging protests call-
ing for states to reopen and warn-
ing about the health risks of doing
so. And in Wisconsin, a state criti-
cal to both Mr. Trump and the pre-
sumptive Democratic nominee,
former Vice President Joseph R.
Biden Jr., the demonstrations
serve as a stand-in for the general
election battle to come.
“This seems to have become a
proxy war for the state Republi-
can Party and it does have a zom-
bie Tea Party feel to it,” said Char-
lie Sykes, a longtime conservative
talk radio host in Milwaukee who
left the airwaves at the end of 2016
and has since turned against
Trump-era Republicans. “This
will energize them to think that
they’re back on the offensive.
They didn’t miss a beat from los-
ing that Supreme Court election
and this all seems about mobiliz-
ing and firing up the base.”
The legal challenge to Mr. Ev-
ers’s extension follows a similar
effort in early April, when Repub-
licans led by Robin Vos, the
speaker of the Wisconsin State As-
sembly, successfully petitioned
the State Supreme Court to block
the governor’s order to move the
election date as well as an effort to
switch to an all-mail election.
Mr. Vos, in an interview, por-
trayed the uprising against Mr.
Evers as a broad response among
Wisconsinites that crossed party
lines. “It’s not just Republicans,”
he said. “It’s a whole lot of people
who own a small businesses and
they’re unemployed and there’s
no reason they can’t work.”
Vicki McKenna, a conservative
talk radio host who has promoted
Lisa Lerer and Lauren Justice con-
tributed reporting.
Clean Water Act Includes
Groundwater Discharges,
Supreme Court Decides
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — The Su-
preme Court ruled on Thursday
that the Clean Water Act applies
to some pollutants that reach the
sea and other protected waters in-
directly through groundwater.
The case, County of Maui v. Ha-
waii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260,
concerned a wastewater treat-
ment plant on Maui, Hawaii, that
used injection wells to dispose of
some four million gallons of
treated sewage each day by
pumping it into groundwater
about a half-mile from the Pacific
Ocean. Some of the waste reached
the ocean.
Environmental groups sued,
calling it “the clean water case of
the century.” A ruling in favor of
the treatment plant “would open a
massive loophole for every pollut-
er in the country to avoid regula-
tion,” David L. Henkin, a lawyer
with Earthjustice, said in Novem-
ber.
In the Supreme Court, the
Trump administration filed a brief
supporting Maui County, which
operates the treatment plant, say-
ing that the law does not apply to
discharges that travel through
groundwater before reaching pro-
tected waters.
In a 6-to-3 ruling, the court re-
jected what it called the extreme
positions advanced by the parties
and the administration, returning
the case to an appeals court for re-
consideration under a new stand-
the rallies on her program, said
she hoped they inspired county
sheriffs and local public health de-
partments to defy the governor’s
coronavirus orders.
“You go to central and northern
Wisconsin, you have folks who are
looking at Milwaukee and saying,
‘We understand that they need
help, but why do we have to sacri-
fice our entire livelihood for
them?’” she said.
While deep anger is growing on
the right, there is some evidence
that the Republican stance on the
coronavirus is repelling voters
Mr. Trump will need to carry the
state in November.
Future Now Fund, a progres-
sive organization that focuses on
state legislative races, found in a
study that in this month’s State
Supreme Court race, Wisconsin
counties with higher coronavirus
infection rates saw larger shifts to
the liberal candidate than did
counties with lower rates. The
shifts occurred in both urban and
rural counties.
“Experiencing coronavirus can
push people beyond their tribal
lane to a different engagement
with politics,” said Daniel Squad-
ard. But the decision was on bal-
ance a victory for environmental
groups, as it allowed at least some
lawsuits over groundwater dis-
charges.
“This decision is a huge victory
for clean water,” said Mr. Henkin,
who argued the case on behalf of
environmental groups. “The Su-
preme Court has rejected the
Trump administration’s effort to
blow a big hole in the Clean Water
Act’s protections for rivers, lakes
and oceans.”
The Clean Water Act requires
“point sources” of pollution to ob-
tain permits for “any addition of
any pollutant to navigable wa-
ters.” Failing to have a permit can
subject polluters to daily fines of
more than $50,000.
It was undisputed that the injec-
tion wells in Maui were “point
sources.” The case turned largely
on whether indirect discharges
were considered “from” the wells.
When the case was argued in
November, the lawyers debated
whether, say, whiskey added to
punch from a flask could be said to
be “from” the original bottle or, in-
deed, from a barrel in Scotland.
In the decision on Thursday, the
justices similarly debated
whether a traveler could be said to
have simultaneously come from
the train station, Baltimore and
Europe and whether a recipe call-
ing for adding drippings from
meat to gravy made sense when
the drippings were collected from
THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
ROBIN VOS, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
ron, the co-founder and executive
director of Future Now Fund.
And Democrats’ private polling
in Wisconsin conducted after the
election but before the protests
began found 72 percent of Wiscon-
sinites approved of how Mr. Evers
has handled the coronavirus re-
sponse. The same poll found Mr.
Trump’s coronavirus job approval
in the state was 51 percent.
“They can try to do this ‘We’re
going to play to our base’ thing,”
said Sachin Chheda, a Milwaukee
Democratic operative who ran the
Supreme Court campaign for the
victorious liberal candidate, Jill
Karofsky. “It’s bad politics. They
might get some short-term wins,
but it isn’t going to help them win
in November.”
The organizers of the Madison
rally and the two others held last
weekend have gone to great
lengths to describe themselves
and their events as nonpolitical,
despite ample evidence that the
state’s Republican leadership is
intricately involved. They are also
trying to prevent the gatherings
from becoming a platform for
other conservative causes, or
from appearing like de facto
a pan.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writ-
ing for the majority, rejected both
sides’ positions in the case as too
extreme. The county and the
Trump administration had argued
that discharges into groundwater
were never covered, while envi-
ronmental groups suing the
county said the law applied to dis-
charges that “actually and fore-
seeably reach navigable surface
waters.”
The United States Court of Ap-
peals for the Ninth Circuit, in San
Francisco, ruled for the envi-
ronmental groups, saying the law
applied because pollution in the
ocean was “fairly traceable” to the
wells.
That standard was too broad,
Justice Breyer wrote. “Virtually
all water, polluted or not, eventu-
ally makes its way to navigable
water,” he wrote. The question
courts should ask, he wrote, was
whether “the addition of the pol-
STEVE APPS/WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clockwise from top: Gov. Tony Evers extended Wisconsin’s stay-
home ordinance through May 26; a small protest against the or-
der in Brookfield, Wis., on Sunday; Robin Vos, the Republican
speaker of the State Assembly, wearing protective equipment
while working at a polling place in Burlington, Wis., this month.
Trump campaign rallies.
Brian Westrate, the treasurer of
the Republican Party of Wiscon-
sin, posted to a private Facebook
group for organizers and some at-
tendees of the Madison rally, ask-
ing people not to bring emblems of
causes other than resisting the
stay-at-home order.
“Ok folks, I implore you, please
leave Confederate flags and/or
AR15s, AK47s, or any other long
guns at home,” Mr. Westrate
wrote. “I well understand that the
Confederacy was more about
states rights than slavery. But that
does not change the truth of how
we should try to control the optics
during the event.”
In an interview, Mr. Westrate
acknowledged writing the post
and said it may be futile to ask the
rally participants to limit the vari-
ety of their political motivations.
“Ideally, people should leave
Trump stuff at home,” he said.
“But you can’t hold a rally in favor
of the First Amendment and then
become over-draconian in terms
of telling people how to dress.”
At two rallies last weekend, in
the conservative Milwaukee sub-
urb of Brookfield and the rural
POOL PHOTO BY WIN M c NAMEE
lutants through groundwater is
the functional equivalent of a di-
rect discharge from the point
source into navigable waters.”
The Ninth Circuit’s approach,
he wrote, “would require a permit
in surprising, even bizarre, cir-
cumstances, such as for pollut-
ants carried to navigable waters
on a bird’s feathers, or, to mention
more mundane instances, the 100-
year migration of pollutants
through 250 miles of groundwater
to a river.”
But the opposite extreme, as ar-
gued by the county and the admin-
istration, would allow polluters to
evade the law, Justice Breyer
wrote. “Why could not the pipe’s
owner, seeking to avoid the permit
requirement, simply move the
pipe back, perhaps only a few
yards, so that the pollution must
travel through at least some
groundwater before reaching the
sea?” he asked.
In requiring “the functional
ANNE LUTY/ANNE LUTY VIA REUTERS
town of Mosinee, protesters car-
ried Confederate flags, waved
Trump signs and toted firearms,
according to attendees and news
photographs of the gatherings.
Cory Tomczyk, who hosted the
Mosinee rally on the grounds of
his industrial recycling company
— which provides raw materials
to companies making paper prod-
ucts — said he hoped the protests
served as a conservative resist-
ance in the same way that the
state’s liberals were galvanized by
Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 move to
end collective bargaining rights
for the state’s public employees.
“People have this image in their
head that they’re going to make it
look like the protest for Act 10,”
Mr. Tomczyk said, referring to the
uprising against Mr. Walker’s la-
bor law. “I don’t know if it will look
like that, but I hope it will.”
With Ms. McKenna and others
in the state’s powerful network of
conservative talk radio hosts pro-
moting the rally daily, the event
will likely draw scores of Republi-
can elected officials on hand to
lend their support, but perhaps
not dominating the stage.
Shae Sortwell, a Republican
state representative from Mani-
Justice Stephen G. Breyer,
right, writing for the majority,
rejected both sides’ positions
in the case as too extreme.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts
Jr., left, joined the opinion.
equivalent of a direct discharge,”
Justice Breyer listed several fac-
tors for courts to consider. “Time
and distance are obviously impor-
tant,” he wrote, but he listed five
other considerations, too, includ-
ing the material through which
the pollutants travel and whether
they are diluted or chemically al-
tered along the way.
“If the pipe ends 50 miles from
navigable waters and the pipe
emits pollutants that travel with
groundwater, mix with much
other material, and end up in navi-
gable waters only many years lat-
er,” he wrote, “the permitting re-
quirements likely do not apply.”
Justice Breyer’s opinion, which
returned the case to the Ninth Cir-
cuit for application of the new
standard, was joined by Chief Jus-
tice John G. Roberts Jr. and Jus-
tices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia
Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and
Brett M. Kavanaugh.
In dissent, Justice Clarence
Thomas, joined by Justice Neil M.
Gorsuch, said the law applied
“only when a point source dis-
charges pollutants directly into
navigable waters.”
In a separate dissent, Justice
Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the
majority opinion “makes up a rule
that provides no clear guidance
and invites arbitrary and incon-
sistent application.”
“The court,” he wrote, “adopts a
nebulous standard, enumerates a
non-exhaustive list of potentially
relevant factors, and washes its
hands of the problem.”
N A21
towoc County, said his caucus’s
G.O.P. leadership suggested mem-
bers not speak at the rally to try to
make sure it comes across as “a
citizen-led effort.” Mr. Sortwell
said he had no qualms about at-
tending the rally.
“Do we want to take away what
people have to live for in the sole
pursuit of one singular goal of ad-
ditional survival,” Mr. Sortwell
said. “Is it safe, is it unsafe? I don’t
know.”
Adrianne Melby, a social media
marketer for a Racine County chi-
ropractic firm who is one of the
planners of the Madison rally, said
organizers had sought to portray
the event as homegrown and
apolitical. She said they turned
down a donor’s offer to help pay
for the event, though Ms. Melby
declined to say who made the of-
fer.
Wisconsin’s State Capitol Police
on Monday denied the Madison
group’s official permit request.
Mr. Evers’s spokeswoman, Melis-
sa Baldauff, said there would not
be an effort to stop people from
gathering outside the Capitol —
they just would not be allowed in-
side the building.
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway
of Madison said she would not use
the city’s Police Department to
force protesters to disperse.
“All indications are that these
are manufactured protests,” Ms.
Rhodes-Conway said. “They are
seeking attention. I think they are
getting more attention than they
deserve.”
One prominent dissenter
among the state’s Republicans is
Senator Ron Johnson, who rose
from being the chief executive of a
plastic manufacturer to winning a
Senate seat in the 2010 Tea Party
wave. Mr. Johnson said he would-
n’t criticize the governor’s stew-
ardship of the pandemic response,
adding that concerns about the
economic impact should not lead
Wisconsinites to disavow public
health guidance.
“I’m not going to gather in
crowds,” said Mr. Johnson, who
said he is donning a mask when he
goes grocery shopping near his
home in Oshkosh. “I have enough
fear and respect of this illness that
I’m not going to do that myself.
I’m not encouraging anybody to
do it.”
Still, few people wore masks or
other protective equipment at the
weekend rallies. And Mr. Vos, who
wore body-length personal pro-
tective equipment during his shift
as a poll monitor in his hometown,
Burlington, on April 7, declined to
say in an interview whether it is
safe for thousands of people to
gather in protest at the State Capi-
tol.
“I’m not a doctor,” Mr. Vos said.
“I don’t give advice to people on
how surgery should be done. I
think people should make their
own choices.”
Corrections
PAGES A2-A3
The Spotlight feature on Thurs-
day about the 50th Earth Day
anniversary misstated which
celebration was held on Wednes-
day. While it was the 50th anni-
versary of the event, it was the
51st celebration of Earth Day.
TRACKING AN OUTBREAK
An article on Thursday about
President Trump’s statement
contradicting health officials’
projections about the likely return
of coronavirus in the fall mis-
stated what season it is in the
Southern Hemisphere. It is fall,
not summer.
ARTS
A book review on Thursday about
“No Man’s Land” by Wendy
Moore misidentified the location
of the Ypres battle site. It is in
Belgium, not France.
OBITUARIES
A picture caption with an obituary
on Thursday about the actress
Shirley Knight misstated the
category in which she won a Tony
Award in 1976. It was best per-
formance by a featured actress in
a play, not best actress.
An obituary on March 18 about
the actor Stuart Whitman mis-
stated the original surname of his
second wife. She was Caroline
Boubis, not Bubois. This correc-
tion was delayed because the
error was brought to the attention
of the obituary editors only re-
cently.
Errors are corrected during the press
run whenever possible, so some errors
noted here may not have appeared in
all editions.
Contact the Newsroom
nytnews@nytimes.com or call
1-844-NYT-NEWS (1-844-698-6397).
Editorials
letters@nytimes.com
Newspaper Delivery
customercare@nytimes.com or call
1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637).
A22 FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

EDITORIALS LETTERS

A Breath of Fresh Air Amid a Pandemic, Looking to the Future

TO THE EDITOR: re-engage with the world. Thus, to
be compelled by external circum-
Re “What the Next Year (or Two)
For Karen Arroyo, a medical assistant at Montefiore Medi- talent shows, about the counselors,” Ms. Arroyo said. “They May Look Like” (front page, April stances back into isolation is devas-
cal Center in the Bronx, the night hours now seem to col- learned about this whole other world out there because of 19): I appreciated the spectrum of tating.
lapse into one another. She moves among Covid-19 patients the Fresh Air Fund.” opinions offered by nearly two Your article notes that “isolation
who are too weak to speak to her. She checks their vital Fatima Shama, executive director of the Fresh Air dozen experts, predicting the future and poverty caused by a long shut-
signs and cleans them off when they’re soiled. She wraps up of the Covid-19 pandemic. With all down may drive up rates of domes-
Fund, said the organization has a long history of serving tic abuse, depression and suicide.”
those who are deceased and prepares them to be trans- due respect, at some point we may
families during times of public health crisis. The organiza- need to consult an epidemiologist Well, stories like this are sufficient
ported to the morgue. When Ms. Arroyo gets home at 7 a.m., tion was founded in 1877 to help children affected by a tuber- just to model the models. As more to tilt the psychologically fragile
she sprays her clothes down with Lysol so as not to expose culosis outbreak, especially those living in New York’s data accrue, models will become into a potentially fatal state of
her family. densely packed tenements, by giving them opportunities to more predictive and reliable. despair. What we need now is clear-
Ms. Arroyo tries not to let her three children see the full In the meantime, we must re- eyed reporting on current circum-
leave the city and spend time outdoors. stances and known facts, not dire
emotional weight of her work — her fear of exposure to the member that the virus is “novel.”
Ms. Shama said that the needs of New York City’s chil- This explains the broad range of projections that may or may not
virus, and grief from witnessing so much loss. But they can
dren today amid the coronavirus pandemic aren’t so differ- estimates of expected cases, pro- prove accurate.
tell that their mom is struggling, and they try to distract her portion of cases that are asymptom-
ent. “For children living in the realities of lockdown, there’s EMILY MACAUX
by playing her favorite songs and silly TikToks. Her kids atic versus fatal, duration of the EAST GREENWICH, R.I.
have their own stress, too. Their schools have closed, and pandemic, and likelihood and mag-
they miss seeing their friends; they worry about keeping up nitude of subsequent surges.
TO THE EDITOR:
with classwork now that their lessons are all online. Increased testing for clinically
On her toughest days, Ms. Arroyo likes to imagine evident and silent infections will Re “What the Next Year (or Two)
eventually inform the true mortal- May Look Like” and “Germany
where her children were last summer, and where they’ll Tries Antibody Tests as a Way
ity rate, currently estimated to be
hopefully be again soon: Camp Junior, a Fresh Air Fund anywhere between about 0.1 per- Back”: I was stunned after I read
camp in New York’s Harriman State Park. She likes to close cent and 5 percent, a 50-fold these two separate articles on the
her eyes and picture them kayaking and giggling with cab- spread. Based upon preliminary front page of Sunday’s Times. If I
in-mates, far from the sounds of the city ambulances. serologic data from investigators at were still in college, the exam
“It’s such an uncertain time, and my university, I suspect that the might be “Compare and Contrast
lower estimate will be closer to the U.S. and German Handling of
A program that I’ve lost so many people I know,” Ms.
reality. the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
once helped city Arroyo said. “My kids really need to be Respiratory viruses are typically It’s no contest. The United States
children escape back at camp. They need to be around seasonal pathogens, and this virus loses by a landslide due to lack of
tuberculosis people and nature.” may have a similar pattern. It is leadership.
finds new Growing up, Ms. Arroyo never possible that, like SARS, it will burn MICHAEL S. OLIN, MIAMI
purpose in went hiking or learned to swim. She out or at least become less severe. I
acknowledge that I am more opti-
today’s could navigate the subways and streets TO THE EDITOR:
mistic than many of my colleagues.
pandemic. of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but the Optimism is an occupational hazard Neither I nor my daughter would
thought of being outdoors made her of pediatricians! ever suggest planning Covid-19
anxious. She didn’t want to pass on her own fears to her chil- parties for herd immunity to restart
CHARLES G. PROBER
dren, so she made sure to teach them how to bike and hold STANFORD, CALIF.
the economy, as implied by how I
their breath underwater when they were young. am quoted in this article. This
The writer is a professor of pediatrics, activity would be dangerous and
Last year, she found an application for the Fresh Air
microbiology and immunology and could have serious public health
Fund’s Camp Junior online. When she got the notice that her senior associate vice provost for health consequences, by spreading dis-
children were accepted, she had to read it three times over education at Stanford University. ease through asymptomatic young-
before she believed it. Her children were going to have an er people.
opportunity she’d never been afforded: summer camp. TO THE EDITOR: The point to be made is that there
Her children were nervous leaving home for the first could be a temptation to go to such
My immediate reaction to the head- gatherings if the social and eco-
time on their own, but by the end of the 12-day session they line “What the Next Year (or Two)
were already making plans for next summer. In each child, nomic value of being antibody
May Look Like” was: “This is positive became too great. But this
JOSHUA BRIGHT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ms. Arroyo noticed a subtle change. Aiden, 10, was ecstatic precisely what we do not need.”
From left, Mikayla, Gabby, Karen and Aiden Arroyo. would be an activity associated
to have a new audience for his goofy jokes. Mikayla, 11, had In-depth reporting on the pandemic
with poor public health behavior.
come out of her shell and was telling stories about her new is the obligation of any responsible
And it is unclear as of yet whether
a lack of ability to be children,” she explained. news outlet. However, particularly
friends. And Gabby, 14, had grown quietly more confident, antibody positivity is even associ-
given the precarious mental health
talking about one day becoming a counselor at the Fresh Air The Fresh Air Fund hopes to reach thousands of New ated with real immunity.
of so many, featuring a story rooted
Fund. York City children from low-income families this year. A visit in speculation (and the bleakest of MICHELE BARRY, STANFORD, CALIF.
Gabby recalled the moment she realized that she had to a volunteer host family costs $1,597, and $2,072 sends a speculations at that) can be harm- The writer is a professor of medicine
the skills to be a counselor, when she was comforting an- Fresh Air child to a camp for one session. The fund hopes to ful to those feeling fragile. and director for the Center for Innova-
other homesick camper and helped her write a letter home raise more than $12 million by the end of September. Ms. I, like countless others, have tion in Global Health at Stanford
to her mom. “Nobody knew each other, but it was such a Shama said the organization plans to open its camps this struggled with periods of debilitat-
University.
ing depression that have driven me
friendly environment,” Gabby said. She added that each day summer, unless advised by public health officials to keep
to retreat entirely from life. Yet in
brought new experiences. “Swimming in a lake and hiking them closed due to social distancing guidelines. The organi- recent months, I had finally turned
for hours was something I’d never gotten to do before.” zation is exploring ways to adapt its traditional summer pro- a corner and was beginning to
Camp Junior opened just last year, and it is not just Ms. gramming if needed. Trump Asks Trump for Aid
Arroyo’s family who has already felt its effects: More than Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to The Fresh TO THE EDITOR:
320 young people from across the Bronx had the chance to Air Fund, 633 Third Avenue, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10017. Re “Trump Hotel Seeks Help From
spend their summer there, learning skills ranging from wil- Families who wish to be hosts, or parents who would like to Firing of Vaccine Official a Familiar Source” (front page,
derness survival to conflict resolution. sign up their children, may call The Fresh Air Fund at (800) TO THE EDITOR: April 22):
“They came back with stories about kayaking, about 367-0003 or visit www.freshair.org. Re “Stand on Drug Led to Ouster, Let me get this straight: The
Official Asserts” (front page, April Trump Organization, owned by
23): The firing of Rick Bright is Donald Trump, leases a building
among the worst decisions ever. Dr. from the federal government,

No Death Sentences for Minor Offenses Bright is a leading authority on headed by Donald Trump, and
vaccines who has spent his entire makes a fortune from the hordes
career studying and developing seeking to curry favor with the
vaccines. He is the perfect person vainglorious Donald Trump. Then
On March 28, Patrick Jones became the first inmate in a fed- the already burdened prison hospital system. The system
to run the Department of Health the pandemic hits, the hotel busi-
eral prison known to have died of Covid-19. He was a worker was ill equipped to provide proper care to the elderly and ness goes south, and the Trump
and Human Services’ Biomedical
at a prison textile factory at the Oakdale Federal Correc- sick even before this crisis. A 2016 report from the Depart- Advanced Research and Develop- Organization asks Donald Trump to
tional Complex in Louisiana, where he was serving time for ment of Justice found that 17 percent of medical positions in ment Authority. reduce the rent.
a nonviolent drug offense. By the third week of April, seven prison hospitals were unfilled, and that 12 Bureau of Prisons His expertise is urgently needed I wonder what Trump the land-
more inmates at Oakdale had died. Meanwhile, prison fac- facilities were so understaffed that they were at “crisis lev- as we face the greatest public lord will say to Trump the tenant on
tories around the country have stayed open, subjecting in- el.” Releasing high-risk inmates will free up limited re- health crisis of our lifetimes. his request?
Abruptly reassigning him to an
mates who work there to packed conditions even as the vi- sources within the prison health care system to better treat BILL GOTTDENKER
unrelated position should be the MOUNTAINSIDE, N.J.
rus spreads. those who remain. last thing anyone would want to do.
Social distancing in prisons is nearly impossible. The A 2016 study from the Brennan Center for Justice found It is painfully apparent that this
size of the inmate population in federal prisons exceeds that there was no compelling public safety reason to incar- move was made in retaliation
their rated capacity by 12 to 19 percent, according to a report cerate 39 percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons, against Dr. Bright for his having
properly disputed President One Benefit of Isolation
this year from the Justice Department. about 576,000 people. Elderly Americans are especially un-
Trump’s unfounded assertions that TO THE EDITOR:
No one deserves to die of Covid-19 in prison or jail. But likely to commit further crimes once released. The United
hydroxychloroquine is a miracle Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his televised
more than 100 inmates already have, and thousands more States Sentencing Commission found in 2017 that offenders drug that can cure coronavirus briefing on April 17 mentioned that
could if prisons and elected officials do not take steps to pro- over the age of 65 had just a 13.4 percent chance of being re- infections. social isolation in response to the
tect the incarcerated now. A report from the American Civil arrested in an eight-year period after release, compared to a When our government chooses to Covid-19 crisis has allowed him to
Liberties Union predicted that an explosion of cases in jails 67.6 percent chance for those under age 21. The report con- put politics ahead of science, we all spend more time talking with his
could cause the total death count in the United States to dou- cluded that “recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, suffer. America should not be de- mother and his children. Many
ble. and reincarceration declined as age increased.” There are prived of Dr. Bright’s contributions have had this same experience.
to vaccine development as we Isn’t it ironic that it takes a na-
Two weeks ago, Cook County Jail in Chicago was the na- more than 10,000 people over the age of 61 in federal prison. endeavor to develop a vaccine
tion’s top hot spot for coronavirus cases, according to The Many elderly inmates have been in pris- tional crisis and social isolation to
against Covid-19. encourage us to spend more time
Times. More than 230 inmates and 115 staff members had Releasing more on for decades after receiving long sen- getting to know our families?
HARVEY M. BERMAN
tested positive, even as the majority of inmates had not been inmates could tences in the tough-on-crime 1990s. WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
EDWARD VOLPINTESTA
tested. This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in help stem the Many would be good candidates for The writer is a psychiatrist. BETHEL, CONN.
Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. spread of the compassionate release now.
There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison’s popu- coronavirus If prisons are unwilling to release
lation, have tested positive. In addition, 154 members of the inside and some inmates outright, they could send
350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 in- outside of eligible people into home confinement, Jim Brown: More Help for Former N.F.L. Players
mates in Ohio’s prison system have tested positive. Ten prisons and jails. at least for the duration of this crisis. At-
TO THE EDITOR: transform the lives of thousands of
have died in Ohio’s Pickaway Correctional Institution, which torney General William Barr has the au-
A few months ago, I wrote an former N.F.L. players and their
houses minimum- and medium-security inmates. thority under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Se- families.
Op-Ed in this newspaper that was
Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait ac- curity Act to expand the authority of the Bureau of Prisons highly critical of the quality of the Thousands of former players and
compli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if prisons send to send people into home confinement. He has already or- National Football League’s pension their beneficiaries will see their
home eligible inmates. The federal government and 49 dered the Bureau of Prisons to make more inmates at fed- and health care benefits available pensions increase by 50 percent or
states already recognize some form of compassionate re- eral facilities eligible for home confinement, prioritizing to the retired players who made more. Those players who were
lease for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to those at federal facilities with outbreaks of the coronavirus this game the greatest sport in the never eligible for pensions will now
show compassion to vulnerable, nonviolent inmates, it is world. I was also highly skeptical receive a pension of almost $20,000
in Louisiana, Connecticut and Ohio. State and local prisons
now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing that the talks underway between per year. In addition, former play-
should follow suit. the league and the players union ers who retired before the Health
also have the power to assess the list of inmates set to be State officials should also work together to limit the on a new collective bargaining Reimbursement Account benefit
paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing
number of new inmates entering prisons during this crisis. agreement would result in any was established will now have a
many of them as soon as possible. meaningful improvement. $50,000 benefit to help pay for
Prosecutors can turn their focus away from low-level
Some states have already taken action to free inmates. A few weeks ago, the question I insurance or other health and
crimes. The police can issue citations for nonviolent crimes
Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington this week commuted the sen- had posed — would the league and medical bills.
instead of arresting people. Governors can issue moratori-
tences of 293 inmates whose release was set to come within players step up for the men on These improved benefits were
ums on cash bail, ensuring that people do not get placed in whose shoulders the N.F.L. was long overdue, but I’m glad that
60 days. In Washington, another 600 inmates are reportedly
being considered for a “rapid re-entry program” that would overcrowded facilities just because they cannot afford to built? — was largely answered. both sides stepped up and made an
allow freed inmates to re-enter the community with elec- pay. That is a bad policy in normal times, and possibly a fatal And the answer is yes. The N.F.L. agreement that delivered dignified
one during this crisis. and the National Football League pensions for the thousands of
tronic monitoring. Governors across the country should
When the pandemic has passed, there will be an oppor- Players Association ratified a new retirees and their families.
evaluate ways to use their clemency powers to save lives. agreement that will govern the
Releasing these prisoners during this crisis is not just tunity for broader criminal justice reforms. But in the very JIM BROWN, LOS ANGELES
game for the next decade and
an act of mercy to protect prisoners’ health, and the health short term, while inmates and staff members are dying, provides unprecedented improve- The writer is the former running back
of the prison staff. Fewer sick inmates means less strain on prisons need to release people immediately. ments in benefits that will help for the Cleveland Browns.

PAUL KRUGMAN
McConnell
To Every State:
Drop Dead
COVID-19 HAS KILLED tens of thousands of
Americans, and will clearly kill many
more. The lockdown needed to contain
the coronavirus is causing an economic
slump several times as deep as the Great
Recession.
Yet this necessary slump doesn’t have
to be accompanied by severe financial
hardship. We have the resources to en-
sure that every American has enough to
eat, that people don’t lose health insur-
ance, that they don’t lose their homes be-
cause they can’t pay rent or mortgage
fees. There’s also no reason we should
see punishing cuts in essential public
services.
Unfortunately, it’s looking increas-
ingly likely that tens of millions of Ameri-
cans will in fact suffer extreme hardship
and that there will be devastating cuts in
services. Why? The answer mainly boils
down to two words: Mitch McConnell.
On Wednesday, McConnell, the Senate
majority leader, declared that he is op-
posed to any further federal aid to belea-
guered state and local governments, and
suggested that states declare bank-
ruptcy instead. Lest anyone accuse Mc-
Connell of being even slightly nonparti-
san, his office distributed two memos re-
ferring to proposals for state aid as “blue
state bailouts.”
A number of governors have already
denounced McConnell’s position as
stupid, which it is. But it’s also vile and
hypocritical.
When I say that we have the resources
to avoid severe financial hardship, I’m
referring to the federal government,
which can borrow vast sums very
cheaply. In fact, the interest rate on infla-
tion-protected bonds, which measure
real borrowing costs, is minus 0.43 per-
cent: Investors are basically paying the
feds to hold their money.
So Washington can and should run big
budget deficits in this time of need. State
Blocking federal aid
is vile, but it’s also
hypocritical.
and local governments, however, can’t,
because almost all of them are required
by law to run balanced budgets. Yet
these governments, which are on the
front line of dealing with the pandemic,
are facing a combination of collapsing
revenue and soaring expenses.
The obvious answer is federal aid. But
McConnell wants states and cities to de-
clare bankruptcy instead.
This is, as I said, stupid on multiple lev-
els. For one thing, states don’t even have
the legal right to declare bankruptcy;
even if they somehow managed all the
same to default on their relatively small
debts, it would do little to alleviate their
financial distress — although it could
cause a national financial crisis.
Oh, and the idea that this is specifically
a blue state problem is ludicrous. Fiscal
crises are looming all across America,
from Florida to Kansas to Texas — hit es-
pecially hard by crashing oil prices — to,
yes, McConnell’s home state, Kentucky.
And if states and local governments
are forced into sharp budget cuts, the ef-
fect will be to deepen the economic
slump — which would be bad for Donald
Trump and could cost Republicans the
Senate.
So yes, McConnell’s position is stupid.
But it’s also vile.
Think of who would be hurt if state and
local governments are forced to make
drastic cuts. A lot of state money goes to
Medicaid, a program that should be ex-
panding, not shrinking, as millions of
Americans are losing their health insur-
ance along with their jobs.
As for the state and local government
workers who may be either losing their
jobs or facing pay cuts, most are em-
ployed in education, policing, firefighting
and highways. So if McConnell gets his
way, America’s de facto policy will be one
of bailing out the owners of giant restau-
rant chains while firing schoolteachers
and police officers.
Last but not least, let’s talk about Mc-
Connell’s hypocrisy, which like his stu-
pidity comes on multiple levels.
At one level, it’s really something to
see a man who helped ram through a gi-
ant tax cut for corporations — which they
mainly used to buy back their own stock
— now pretend to be deeply concerned
about borrowing money to help states
facing a fiscal crisis that isn’t their fault.
At another level, it’s also really some-
thing to see McConnell, whose state is
heavily subsidized by the federal gov-
ernment, give lectures on self-reliance to
states like New York that pay much more
in federal taxes than they get back.
We’re not talking about small numbers
here. According to estimates by the
Rockefeller Institute, from 2015 to 2018
Kentucky — which pays relatively little
in federal taxes, because it’s fairly poor,
but gets major benefits from programs
like Medicare and Social Security — re-
ceived net transfers from Washington
averaging more than $33,000 per person.
That was 18.6 percent of the state’s G.D.P.
True, relatively rich states like New
York, New Jersey and Connecticut prob-
ably should be helping out their poorer
neighbors — but those neighbors don’t
then get the right to complain about
“blue state bailouts” in the face of a na-
tional disaster.
Of course, McConnell has an agenda
here: He’s hoping to use the pandemic to
force afflicted states to shrink their gov-
ernments. We can only hope both that
this shameless exploitation of tragedy
fails and that McConnell and his allies
pay a heavy political price. 0 ographically closer than I’ve been in
THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
A More Perfect Kind of Union?
Richard Kreitner
T
HREE groups of governors in the
East, West and Midwest have an-
nounced that they will work to-
gether on plans to lift the lock-
downs in their states once the peak of the
coronavirus outbreak has passed. At a
time of federal abdication, these state
leaders are thinking seriously about alter-
natives to the existing model of American
federalism.
The regional partnerships may signal
the emergence of a new framework for
dealing with other pressing issues on
which Washington has failed to lead, like
transportation, health insurance and cli-
mate change. The long-overdue process of
replacing America’s outdated federal sys-
tem has perhaps already begun.
On the same day last week, California,
Oregon and Washington formed the West-
ern States Pact and seven East Coast
states, from Delaware to Massachusetts,
created a “multistate coalition.” Soon af-
ter, seven mostly Midwestern states, from
Kentucky to Minnesota, joined in a yet-un-
named alliance that Minnesota’s gover-
nor, Tim Walz, likened to “sort of a loose
Articles of Confederation approach.”
That the chief executive of an American
state is invoking the Articles of Confedera-
tion as “the model we’re taking now” (Mr.
Walz again) hints at how transformative
these developments may be. The Union as
Americans have known it for centuries
may be beginning to fray.
The 17 states of the three blocs together
include nearly half the American popula-
tion and an even higher percentage of the
country’s economic activity. Their agree-
ments for interstate cooperation are infor-
mal, nonbinding pacts among governors
(14 Democrats and three Republicans) to
share data and coordinate efforts. Each
state is free to go along with neighboring
states or to plot its own path forward when
that makes more sense.
As it has in many areas of life, the coro-
navirus has exposed and exacerbated this
country’s unresolved conflicts and contra-
dictions. Neither the paralyzed, sclerotic
central government nor the 50 unequal
and arbitrarily determined states turn out
to be most reliable or effective for deter-
mining policy related to all-consuming
emergencies like a pandemic.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to re-
drawing the political map of the United
States in this way is our bipartisan tradi-
tion of worshiping the founders. For many
My Mom Is Busy Getting Ready to Die
LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant
M
Y MOTHER is dying a painful
death, and it has everything
and nothing to do with
Covid-19.
In an article for The Atlantic detailing
the ways in which the coronavirus seems
to be hitting black people the hardest,
Ibram X. Kendi wrote: “Sometimes ra-
cial data tell us something we don’t know.
Other times we need racial data to con-
firm something we already seem to
know.” My mother is a living example of
what we already know about race, class
and suffering.
She is not in an elder-care facility, nor a
hospital. She has not been, and most
likely will not be, tested for the virus or
receive a diagnosis of it.
Still, hers is the body of all the black
people at the bottom of the pandemic. No
insurance, though not for lack of trying.
Medicaid applications denied for rea-
sons we don’t understand. Inconsistent
care at a local public clinic meant hard-
to-come-by appointments and checkups
only at moments deemed most critical. It
wasn’t enough.
Now she’s dying from end-stage liver
disease and kidney failure, diagnosed
too late to save her. This has nothing to
do with Covid-19.
She is not even that old (64, and thus
Medicare ineligible), but FaceTime tells
no lies, and she is wasting away before
us. What’s worse, even as I’m exactly
four hours and three minutes away — ge-
of the framers of the Constitution, nothing
was more disturbing than the possibility
that the Union would fracture into three or
four smaller republics, or regional “sub-
confederations.”
This was precisely the peril that
haunted the country under the Articles of
Confederation. By 1786, a decade after the
13 colonies declared independence, the
country already seemed to be breaking
apart. Divisive questions related to trade,
taxes, land and inequality threatened to
rupture the young Republic.
Frustrated politicians and ordinary citi-
zens in every part of the Confederation fa-
vored reducing the bounds of government
to a more local scale. It wasn’t possible to
govern so enormous a country — at least
not as a republic.
Better, as one Massachusetts writer put
it, to shrink “the limits of the confederacy
to such as are natural and reasonable,”
and within those to create “a real and an
efficient government.” If that meant form-
ing a new Nation of New England, so be it.
The pandemic is
highlighting America’s
outdated federal system.
Whether the Union held together wasn’t
as important as the survival of those inter-
ests and values it had been created to se-
cure.
But for others, sub-confederations were
anathema. They would immediately cre-
ate rivalries between the republics, per-
haps lead to civil war, and invite foreign
meddling in American politics. The vic-
tory of the Revolution would be lost.
The founders were so concerned about
interstate alliances eroding national unity
that they sought to prevent any from
forming without federal support. They
wrote into the new Constitution a provi-
sion expressly forbidding their formation
— Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3: “No state
shall, without the consent of Congress” en-
ter into “any agreement or compact with
another state.”
Well-known interstate partnerships
like the century-old Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey exist today only be-
cause they received congressional author-
ization. Some commentators have sug-
gested that alliances like the Western
States Pact will require federal approval
as well.
That is unlikely. According to Virginia v.
over a decade — I can’t be near her, touch
her, cook for her, kiss her or tell her all of
the things that I don’t yet know I need to
say. This has everything to do with
Covid-19.
On the occasion she’s strong enough to
answer the phone, holding it for Face-
Time proves too much. Calls come too
late, even as time is too short. The grand-
children who live close by cannot get
close to her — the idea of transmitting
anything to her, as she’s so obviously im-
mune-compromised, is terrifying. The
She’s alone, and one of
the black people at the
bottom of the pandemic.
underlying conditions would amplify an
already certain death. This has every-
thing to do with Covid-19.
My brother, who lives exactly six min-
utes and 24 seconds away from Mommy,
risks seeing her because someone needs
to make sure she’s still breathing. That
check-in is thus essential. He scrubs him-
self clean after work with all manner of
chemicals — he’s a waste management
truck driver, an essential employee. This
is an effort to protect her. He’s close to
her. This is an effort to protect us. This
has everything to do with Covid-19.
He tries to get her to eat something
other than her single meal of applesauce
and Vienna sausages. This has nothing
to do with Covid-19.
It’s officially power-of-attorney and
WREN McDONALD
Tennessee, an 1893 case regarding a long-
standing boundary dispute between the
two states, interstate compacts require
congressional authorization only when
they claim new powers for the states that
they did not have before or if they intrude
on federal prerogatives. The power to lift
lockdowns imposed by state governments
— or, for that matter, to purchase neces-
sary medical supplies — already rests
with the states.
There are practical reasons these re-
gional coalitions should be seen as a pos-
itive development for our deadlocked,
dysfunctional nation and perhaps even
expanded to focus on other issues. The
Department of Transportation designates
13 “megaregions,” cross-state territories
centered on urban cores and “connected
by existing environmental, economic, cul-
tural and infrastructure relationships.”
These megaregions may be the building
blocks of a new post-pandemic federalism.
But they may also produce partisan fis-
sures. Would liberals who today cheer the
state formations object to a group of Re-
publican-led Southern states, for instance,
forming a league to forge their own policy
direction (regarding coronavirus or any-
thing else) under a Democratic presiden-
cy?
It would have seemed far-fetched even
six weeks ago to imagine the president
leaving governors to handle a pandemic
on their own and states teaming up in re-
gional coalitions. Looking further ahead,
regional compacts might be the way to
control and fend off national dissolution
rather than accelerate it.
The form of the United States of Amer-
ica would be retained, but limited to some-
thing more akin to a loose league like the
Articles of Confederation. The constituent
pieces of this new Union would be eight to
12 regions, that would take on many of the
responsibilities of the states and federal
government.
This new Union might be more respon-
sive to the needs of ordinary people, more
attuned to the ecological impact of human
actions and less likely to go abroad, as
John Quincy Adams put it, “in search of
monsters to destroy.” Rather than a plan
for less government, this kind of reorgani-
zation could clear away the obstacles for a
more active, energetic one — at least in
the places that want it. 0
RICHARD KREITNER, a contributing writer
at The Nation, is the author of the forth-
coming “Break It Up: Secession, Division,
and the Secret History of America’s Im-
perfect Union.”
health-proxy time. Getting my mother to
the lawyer — a four-minute drive — is a
thing. My brother and I spend hours
strategizing transportation. The errand
feels like it takes an eternity. This has ev-
erything to do with Covid-19.
My mother is going to die soon, and my
process isn’t pretty. I laugh and remem-
ber, rage and weep, and I lament time
lost, never to be regained. When she has
enough energy to speak, she rushes me
off the phone, invoking busyness. She’s
busy getting ready to die, and it doesn’t
seem like it’s on her own terms. Is it
ever? I want more time. This has nothing
to do with Covid-19.
Like so many, countless others, my
family and I are going to be left with the
unsettling weight of her death. My
mother is going to die soon, and it will
most likely be alone. I am afraid. I am one
of many grieving, forever-changed
faces. No repast. No low-country songs
sung graveside. No sending up our tim-
ber for her. We cannot grieve properly.
Lots of regret. This has everything to do
with Covid-19.
When the pandemic is over, we still
won’t know how to deal with this. We’re
not ready for this kind of grief. Death is
so utter, so absolute, yet so much right
now is uncertain. My mother is dying a
painful death, and it has everything and
nothing to do with Covid-19. 0
LERHONDA S. MANIGAULT-BRYANT is an
associate professor of Africana studies at
Williams College and the author of “Talk-
ing to the Dead: Religion, Music, and
Lived Memory Among Gullah/Geechee
Women.”
N A23
DAVID BROOKS
Who’s Driving
Inequality?
You Are
WHO IS DRIVING inequality in America?
You are. I am. We are.
Did you read to your kids before bed
when they were young? If you did, you
gave them an advantage over kids whose
parents were working the evening shift at
7-Eleven. Did you spend extra on tutoring
or music lessons? Since 1996, affluent
families have spent almost 300 percent
more educating their young while every-
body else’s spending has been mostly flat.
Did you marry before having kids and
raise your kids in a two-parent home?
The children of the well educated are now
much more likely to grow up in stable
families, and those differences in family
structure explain 32 percent of the
growth of family income inequality since
1979.
If you did these things, you did nothing
wrong. You invested in your children’s
flourishing as any decent parent would.
But here’s the situation: The informa-
tion economy rains money on highly
trained professionals — doctors, lawyers,
corporate managers, engineers and so
on.
Daniel Markovits, author of “The Meri-
tocracy Trap,” estimates there are about
one million of these workers in America
today. They work really hard, are really
productive and earn a lot more. In the
mid-1960s, profits per partner at elite law
firms were less than five times a secre-
tary’s salary. Now, Markovits notes, they
are over 40 times.
These professionals invest heavily in
their children’s education. By eighth
grade, students from affluent families are
four grade levels ahead of students from
poor families. Seventy-two percent of
students at the 150 most competitive col-
leges come from the richest quarter of
families, and only 3 percent come from
the poorest.
Inherited inequality is bad enough. But
it’s the geographic concentration that is
There are ways to rebuild
social solidarity.
really turning America into a caste soci-
ety. Affluent people used to be spread
around: owning the local bank or factory,
sending their kids to the local schools.
Now those of us in the top 20 percent of
earners are concentrated in talent-rich
zones around New York, D.C., the Bay
Area, etc. The already advantaged build
rich communities and multiply one an-
other’s advantages even more. It takes a
village to raise a Stanford grad.
You don’t have to drive very far outside
these top 20 percent communities to find
yourself in a different universe. In Febru-
ary I drove from Manhattan Beach, Calif.,
to Watts in South Central L.A. and Comp-
ton, where I spent a few days interview-
ing residents.
People in Compton and Watts — almost
exclusively Latino and black — talked
about all the things that have been
stripped away from their communities:
good schools, public amenities, school
choirs, music festivals. Fear was a con-
stant subject of conversation. Most of the
people I spoke with had lost a family
member to gun violence.
People spoke about intense levels of
social distrust; the locals had been be-
trayed again and again by outsiders and
now are very skeptical of people promis-
ing to make improvements. They talked
about trauma. “There are Compton riots
on the inside now,” one resident told me.
I chose to go to Compton and Watts for
a specific reason, which offers a way for-
ward. Harvard economist Raj Chetty re-
cently led a study that showed that
though these two neighborhoods are
demographically similar and only 2.3
miles apart, 44 percent of the black men
who grew up in Watts were incarcerated
on April 1, 2010, compared with only 6.2
percent of the black men who grew up in
families with similar incomes in Central
Compton. Similarly, social mobility was
much lower in Watts than in Compton.
Why are some neighborhoods, includ-
ing some in Compton, able to give their
kids better chances in life despite so
many disadvantages? Chetty points to
several factors: better schools, more fa-
thers present in the neighborhoods and
more cohesive community organizations.
I found all those things in my reporting
in Compton — and something else. Watts
is part of Los Angeles. Compton is its own
city with its own mayor. I met a lot of
great people in Watts, but Compton has
more civic infrastructure — community
groups and locally controlled govern-
ment agencies. Compton has a lot of
homegrown civic reformers, like Rafer
Owens, who is a deputy Los Angeles
County sheriff and pastor at a Baptist
church. There’s also a mentality: We
have faith in our ability to take care of
ourselves; only people in the neighbor-
hood really know what’s going on.
Some people who talk about inequality
focus on the top 1 percent, and if you want
to go after the hedge fund billionaires feel
free. But as inequality is actually lived
out, it’s the 20/80 gap that is most glaring
and most unjust.
But we can reduce the opportunity gap
if we follow the lessons of Compton: First,
the neighborhood is the unit of change.
Social mobility rises village by village.
Second, the people in the community
have to be in charge. They need re-
sources from outside, but only local con-
trol does the trick. Third, spending
money on preschool, apprenticeship and
other human capital programs really
works.
The top 20 percent is not going to stop
spending heavily on their kids. We have
to give the bottom 80 percent the re-
sources to do the same. 0
 A24 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Tornadoes Rip Through Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, Killing at Least 7

This article is by Michael Leven- people were killed and one was three counties in Mississippi re- tornado had damaged at least 12
son, Neil Vigdor and Christine critically injured when a violent ported damage, and about 35,000 homes, businesses and power
Hauser. tornado landed around 5 p.m., customers lost power, the state’s lines in Marshall County.
A series of powerful tornadoes said Robert Chaney, the county’s emergency management agency The tornadoes were produced
ripped through Oklahoma, Louisi- emergency management director. said. by intense storms that moved
ana and Texas on Wednesday There were at least two storm- In Oklahoma, one of the people through the region on Wednesday,
evening, destroying homes, flip- related fatalities in Louisiana, killed was found on a roadside, the setting off warnings across parts
ping cars and killing at least seven where tornadoes and flooding authorities said, not far from J & I of Arkansas, Oklahoma and
people, according to the authori- threatened residents. In Rapides Manufacturing, which makes Texas, according to the National
ties. Dozens more were injured. Parish, where a tornado landed truck beds and truck bodies and Weather Service.
In Polk County, Texas, a woman overnight, a woman died in Wood- was one of the two factories in the B. Milton Choate, the mayor of
and two men were killed and as worth, said Barry Herrington, an state that were struck and dam- Onalaska, Texas, about 90 miles
many as 30 people were injured investigator in the coroner’s of- aged. The other factory was Okla- north of Houston, said that a “sig-
when a tornado barreled through fice. homa Steel & Wire, which said on nificant number” of houses in the
a subdivision of mobile homes and In the city of Mansfield, to the Facebook that it had taken a “sub- town had been damaged or de-
houses around dinnertime, the au- northwest, Lehera Harris, a 48- stantial hit” but was fortunate that stroyed. He said he was not cer-
thorities said. year-old resident, was swept “all of our people are safe and ac- tain how many people had been in-
The subdivision is in Onalaska, away by a strong current as he counted for.” jured but noted that “lots of people
about 90 miles north of Houston, tried to retrieve his trash can from The winds were so strong, Mr. have been transported to the hos-
and recovery crews on Thursday the flooded street near his home, Chaney, the emergency manage- MIKEY GRIBBLE pital.”
searched through the debris said Deputy Mark Pierce of the ment director, said, that a number In Oklahoma, the wind from a tornado was so strong it pushed a Olivia Ayala, 66, said she was
there, in Livingston and in other DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office. of cars were “balled up from the car “up in a tree,” said Robert Chaney, an emergency manager. standing at the stove in her mobile
communities that suffered severe The tornado in Rapides Parish force of the tornado,” and one was home when the tornado moved
damage. At least 291 homes were was one of three that swept “up in a tree.” through her area of Onalaska,
close enough to see the damage ing.” known as Yaupon Cove.
affected by the tornado, with at through central Louisiana At the Holy Cross Catholic
tonight,” Ms. Clay said. About 15 minutes before Mar- The community, which is home
least 46 of them destroyed, the overnight, including in the town of Church in Madill, Okla., which was
Alexandria, said Andy Tingler, a dedicated last year, the pastor was Mr. Chaney said he was not sure shall County was hit, another tor- to many retirees, is made up of
Polk County Office of Emergency
Management said. National Weather Service meteor- in a safe room built into the new how many people had been in- nado landed in Garvin County, both trailers and houses, Ms. Ay-
“Last night’s tornado caused ologist. The campus of Louisiana rectory when the tornado hit, said jured in Marshall County. Okla., about 80 miles to the north, ala said.
significant damage and led to State University in Alexandria Diane Clay, a spokeswoman for Mr. Chaney said that, despite and raked across the ground for “The noise, just the wind, it was
tragic loss of life within these com- was damaged, the school said on the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. the coronavirus pandemic that about a mile, said David Johnson, so hard,” she said. “It was the
munities, and our hearts continue Twitter. The pastor was unharmed, she has closed businesses across the the county’s emergency manage- worst five minutes ever.”
to be with Texans affected by More than 15,000 customers in said, but he reported that only one country, most businesses and fac- ment director. Three houses as She said there was a large de-
these devastating storms,” Gov. the state had no power around corner of the rectory was still tories in Madill were open on well as four or five barns, shops bris field and many snapped trees.
Greg Abbott of Texas and Judge midday, according to power- standing and that the church had Wednesday when the tornado and outbuildings were damaged, “We’ve got stuff from places
Sydney Murphy of Polk County outage.us, a project that tracks sustained damage to its south side struck. he said, but no one was injured or that I don’t know,” she said of the
said in a joint statement on Thurs- data from utilities nationwide. and most of its windows. “Everybody is taking the basic killed. debris, adding that her patio roof
day. As the severe weather system “Because of downed power precautions that we can,” he said. The Oklahoma Department of came down on her deck and a tree
In Marshall County, Okla., two tracked east on Thursday, at least lines and a gas leak, we can’t get “But basically everybody is work- Emergency Management said the had fallen on her car.

Weather Report Meteorology by AccuWeather

Vancouver
anc 30s
30
0s
30s 40s
0s
0 Metropolitan Forecast
L H 90° Record
Regina TODAY ...................................................Rain highs
Seattl
Seattle
Seatt Winnipeg
nnipeg
nipeg
eg 40s Quebec
becc Halifax
Spokane
e High 50. An umbrella will come in handy,
Portlan
and Mont
Montreal
Mon
50s as low pressure will bring several hours of TODAY
He
Helena
50s
60
60s Bismarck Fargo
o B rl
Burlington
Burlin on Po
Por
Portland
d
rain. There will be a cool breeze averaging
Eugen
ne Ottawa 80° S M T W T F S S M T
Billings
gs Mancheste
Ma ch e err 5 to 10 miles per hour.
Boi
ois
ise 4
40s
St. Paul
St
Toronto
To Alb
bany Bos
Boston TONIGHT .......................................Rain early
Minne
i eeapolis
6
60s
50s Pierre 40s L Low 43. Low pressure will move away and
70ss H Milwauke
ee
Detroitt
Bufffalo Hartf
Hartford
f
Casper
Sioux
ou Falls
New York
N take the rain with it. Clouds will begin to
70°
Ren
no
n Cheyenne
heye
Des Moines Chicago
hicago
icago l d Pit
Cleveland
C Pittsburgh
Pitt
Philadelph
Philad
adelphia
de
de
break after midnight and the breeze will
Omaha
San
an
nFFrancisco
Franc sco
o
Salt Lake
ake
40s Indianapolis
an Washington
W shington
hi gton
hington
gto
ton
diminish. Temperatures will be a few
City
ty Normal
80s Den
nver Kansas 60ss degrees lower than usual for late April. highs
Colo
orado
o ado 60s Topeka City
Springfie
gfield
gfiel
e
Charleston
arlest
arleston
ston
L Richm
chmond
Fresno
no
o Las
ass Springs
Springs
rings St. Lou
uis N
Norfolk TOMORROW ...............Clouds and sunshine
Lou
ou
uisville
Vegas 60°
Wichita Raleig
Raleigh
gh High 60. High pressure over northern
Los Angeles Santa Fe Nashville Charlotte New England will provide sun, but clouds
Oklahoma
kklahoma
oma City
L Little Rock
M
Memphis 70s
70
0s will arrive in the afternoon in advance of a
San
n Die
e
ego
100+
0+
Phoe
hoenix
nix Albuquerque 70s
0 H Columb
bia storm.
90s Lubbock
ck Atlanta
nta
Tucson
n B
Birmingham SUNDAY .............................Rain tapering off 50°
Dallas JJackson
son
on Normal
Ft. Worth 80s Expect rain, especially through the early lows
El Paso
E
80s
80
80s Baton
on Roug
Rouge J
Jacksonville afternoon. It will be cool, with tempera-
Mo
Mobile 70s
0ss tures about 10 degrees lower than nor-
Honolulu
olulu
u 90s Or
Orlando
New
60s
60
0s
0s
H
Hilo
San Antonio
Ho
Hou
ouston Orleans Tampa
a 80s mal for late April. 40°
70s 80s
100+
0 90s
90 MONDAY
80s Corpus Christi
C Miami TUESDAY ........................Rain early Monday
Nassau
0s 90
0s Monterrrey Low pressure will move away Monday.
10s
Weather patterns shown as expected at noon today, Eastern time. Rain in the morning will end in the after- 30°
Record
20
20s
noon. The high will be 51. Mostly cloudy lows
Fairbanks
nks 30ss TODAY’S HIGHS
Tuesday. The high will be 58. Forecast
<0 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100+
40s Actual range
50s Anchorage
nchorage H L High High
Juneau
neau COLD WARM STATIONARY COMPLEX HIGH LOW MOSTLY SHOWERS T-STORMS RAIN FLURRIES SNOW ICE
FRONTS COLD PRESSURE CLOUDY PRECIPITATION Low Low

Highlight: Very Warm in the West this Weekend National Forecast Metropolitan Almanac
The first significant warm The same storm system responsible for In Central Park for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday.
surge of the season will severe weather in the Southern states
spread from Southern JET STREAM since Tuesday will spread rain from the Temperature Precipitation (in inches)
California and Arizona central Appalachians to the Mid-Atlantic Record Yesterday ............. Trace
through the Great Basin as Medford Boise high 86° Record .................... 2.34
coast and southern New England today. (2007)
the jet stream lifts north. Severe thunderstorms are forecast in 80° WED. YESTERDAY For the last 30 days
High temperatures in Los Actual ..................... 3.55
the Florida Peninsula, with heavy rain and Normal .................... 4.59
Angeles could top 90 both Reno Salt Lake City high winds. Much of the rest of the South
70° For the last 365 days
Friday and Saturday. will get a break from violent weather. As Actual ................... 50.26
Temperatures some 10-15 UNSEASONABLY showers move eastward over the north- Normal Normal .................. 49.92
high 64°
degrees above average are Fresno WARM
ern Plains, thunderstorms are expected LAST 30 DAYS
60°
likely to spread across to become severe over the Ozarks and 51°
Air pressure Humidity
Las Vegas
much Nevada and Utah spread over the middle Mississippi Valley. 4 p.m. High ........... 30.13 9 a.m. High ........... 44% 10 a.m.
Sunday into Monday. Low ............ 30.04 4 p.m. Low .............. 31% 4 p.m.
Clouds and showers will linger over the 50° Normal
Rockies as sunshine, dry air and heat low 47° Cooling Degree Days
build over much of the Southwest. The An index of fuel consumption that tracks how
wildfire risk will continue, centered on 40° far the day’s mean temperature rose above 65
New Mexico. Showers will dampen part of Yesterday..................................................................... 0
40° So far this month .......................................................... 0
the Northwest coast. 6 a.m. Record
So far this season (since January 1) ............................ 0
low 29°
30° (1872)
Normal to date for the season ..................................... 2

4 12 6 12 4
p.m. a.m. a.m. p.m. p.m. Trends Temperature Precipitation
Little Rock 74/ 52 0.02 77/ 57 PC 72/ 50 PC New Delhi 96/ 76 0 99/ 76 PC 98/ 75 PC
Cities Los Angeles 91/ 68 Tr 95/ 68 S 91/ 64 S Riyadh 97/ 66 0 98/ 74 PC 101/ 75 W Average Average
High/low temperatures for the 16 hours ended at 4 Louisville 63/ 54 1.09 70/ 55 PC 68/ 50 R Seoul 57/ 39 0 59/ 48 S 63/ 42 PC Avg. daily departure Avg. daily departure Below Above Below Above
p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) Memphis 68/ 52 0.88 76/ 60 PC 70/ 52 C Shanghai 66/ 53 0 73/ 59 PC 79/ 59 PC from normal from normal Last 10 days
for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday. Miami 88/ 81 0 96/ 78 S 92/ 76 T Singapore 90/ 81 0.27 89/ 79 T 87/ 78 T this month.............. –1.5° this year ................ +4.2°
Milwaukee 47/ 40 0.15 47/ 40 Sh 46/ 39 R Sydney 76/ 55 0 82/ 58 S 79/ 61 S 30 days
Expected conditions for today and tomorrow.
Mpls.-St. Paul 59/ 41 0 56/ 41 Sh 64/ 40 C Taipei City 68/ 59 0.68 65/ 62 R 73/ 67 Sh 90 days
C ........................ Clouds S .............................Sun Nashville 70/ 54 0.76 73/ 54 PC 69/ 48 Sh Tehran 77/ 61 0.02 76/ 55 T 79/ 59 PC Reservoir levels (New York City water supply) 365 days
F............................. Fog Sn ....................... Snow New Orleans 84/ 66 0.33 85/ 68 S 86/ 67 S Tokyo 59/ 46 0.13 60/ 48 R 64/ 58 W
H .......................... Haze SS .......... Snow showers Norfolk 68/ 61 0.10 78/ 55 T 63/ 55 PC Yesterday ............. 100% Chart shows how recent temperature and precipitation
Oklahoma City 80/ 56 0 71/ 48 T 71/ 47 S Europe Yesterday Today Tomorrow
I............................... Ice T............ Thunderstorms Est. normal ........... 100% trends compare with those of the last 30 years.
Omaha 78/ 51 0 68/ 43 R 69/ 44 PC Amsterdam 73/ 48 0 65/ 42 PC 60/ 40 PC
PC ............. Partly cloudy Tr ......................... Trace Athens 61/ 51 0 67/ 49 PC 71/ 52 S
Orlando 93/ 73 0 84/ 73 T 87/ 73 T
R ........................... Rain W ........................ Windy Philadelphia 60/ 48 0.09 54/ 44 R 64/ 48 PC Berlin 72/ 43 0 71/ 44 PC 60/ 42 PC
Sh ................... Showers –............... Not available Brussels 73/ 45 0 70/ 40 PC 64/ 38 PC
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
97/
59/
71
48
0
0.08
98/
61/
70
44
S
Sh
100/
63/
71
47
S
R Budapest 68/ 41 0 73/ 49 PC 71/ 38 W
Recreational Forecast
N.Y.C. region Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Portland, Me. 52/ 33 0 48/ 35 C 54/ 37 PC Copenhagen 68/ 44 0 58/ 41 PC 58/ 42 PC
New York City 51/ 40 Tr 50/ 43 R 60/ 46 PC Portland, Ore. 64/ 49 0.03 66/ 51 C 64/ 43 R Dublin 55/ 43 0 61/ 41 PC 62/ 41 PC Sun, Moon and Planets Mountain and Ocean Temperatures
Bridgeport 46/ 35 0.02 50/ 42 R 58/ 44 PC Providence 53/ 40 0 48/ 38 R 61/ 39 PC Edinburgh 54/ 39 0 59/ 39 S 62/ 44 PC
Caldwell 53/ 33 0.04 51/ 41 R 63/ 44 PC Raleigh 66/ 61 0.23 79/ 52 PC 72/ 55 T Frankfurt 73/ 48 0 77/ 46 PC 69/ 43 PC First Quarter Full Last Quarter New
Danbury 45/ 28 0.02 47/ 36 R 61/ 40 PC Reno 74/ 48 0 77/ 49 PC 79/ 48 PC Geneva 73/ 48 0 72/ 49 PC 72/ 50 T Today’s forecast
Islip 48/ 34 0.04 50/ 41 R 58/ 43 PC Richmond 64/ 56 0.10 75/ 48 T 65/ 51 T Helsinki 55/ 36 0 50/ 27 C 47/ 29 PC
Newark 51/ 36 0.15 51/ 42 R 60/ 45 PC Rochester 40/ 35 0.01 48/ 34 PC 57/ 39 C Istanbul 57/ 45 0 59/ 44 S 60/ 51 S White
Trenton 56/ 33 0.04 51/ 41 R 61/ 44 PC Sacramento 85/ 59 0 89/ 61 S 85/ 57 PC Kiev 64/ 35 0 68/ 47 PC 68/ 42 Sh Apr. 30 May 7 May 14 May 22 47/25 Clouds and breaks of sun
White Plains 46/ 32 0.03 49/ 38 R 58/ 42 PC Salt Lake City 61/ 45 0.16 63/ 45 PC 70/ 55 PC Lisbon 70/ 52 0 71/ 54 T 63/ 53 T 6:44 a.m. 1:38 p.m.
London 75/ 46 0 71/ 46 PC 68/ 43 PC Green
United States Yesterday Today Tomorrow San Antonio 90/ 63 0 96/ 65 S 84/ 60 S
San Diego 78/ 64 0 82/ 65 S 79/ 64 S Madrid 70/ 49 0 73/ 52 PC 72/ 53 T 38/23 Partly sunny
Albany 53/ 38 0 53/ 35 R 63/ 43 PC Sun RISE 6:03 a.m. Moon R 7:06 a.m.
San Francisco 71/ 55 0 72/ 55 S 69/ 53 PC Moscow 50/ 30 0 47/ 32 C 46/ 29 C 7:45 p.m. 9:24 p.m.
Albuquerque 76/ 50 0 73/ 46 PC 76/ 50 S SET S Adirondacks
San Jose 78/ 55 0 82/ 57 S 78/ 55 PC Nice 70/ 54 0 67/ 57 PC 66/ 56 S
Anchorage 45/ 38 0.09 48/ 38 PC 49/ 33 S NEXT R 6:02 a.m. R 7:37 a.m. 46/21 Periodic clouds, sun
San Juan 84/ 76 0.09 86/ 75 W 87/ 75 S Oslo 64/ 43 0 56/ 37 PC 57/ 36 C
Atlanta 67/ 56 1.70 75/ 56 PC 77/ 53 T Paris 79/ 49 0 77/ 54 PC 71/ 50 PC Jupiter R 1:53 a.m. Mars R 3:03 a.m.
Seattle 61/ 48 0.05 64/ 51 PC 61/ 46 R Berkshires
Atlantic City 55/ 50 0 55/ 48 R 54/ 48 PC Prague 66/ 38 0 70/ 43 PC 60/ 37 PC S 11:25 a.m. S 1:06 p.m.
Sioux Falls 75/ 46 0 65/ 41 T 66/ 39 PC 49/33 Periodic rain
Austin 88/ 62 0 94/ 62 S 82/ 55 S Rome 66/ 54 0.07 67/ 48 S 66/ 49 S
Spokane 62/ 39 0.01 59/ 43 S 61/ 38 Sh Saturn R 2:10 a.m. Venus R 7:49 a.m.
Baltimore 62/ 52 0.03 62/ 47 R 62/ 49 PC St. Petersburg 50/ 32 0 42/ 28 C 41/ 29 PC
St. Louis 64/ 49 0.60 71/ 52 R 61/ 46 R S 11:51 a.m. S 11:30 p.m. Catskills
Baton Rouge 85/ 58 0.30 87/ 64 S 83/ 58 S St. Thomas 85/ 78 0.05 88/ 78 W 87/ 78 S Stockholm 61/ 40 0 50/ 35 C 49/ 34 C
Birmingham 74/ 54 0.66 77/ 57 PC 74/ 52 PC 46/32 Occasional rain
Syracuse 45/ 37 Tr 54/ 36 R 62/ 42 C Vienna 66/ 39 0 74/ 53 PC 68/ 40 PC 40s
Boise 63/ 42 0.17 62/ 43 PC 71/ 47 C Warsaw 66/ 39 0 70/ 46 PC 57/ 35 Sh
Boating
Tampa 89/ 78 0 82/ 74 T 85/ 73 T Poconos
Boston 54/ 40 0 45/ 38 R 52/ 40 PC Toledo 55/ 40 0.14 63/ 43 PC 57/ 43 R
North America Yesterday Today Tomorrow From Montauk Point to Sandy Hook, N.J., out to 20 48/39 Occasional rain
Buffalo 42/ 37 0.17 50/ 36 PC 60/ 42 C Tucson 91/ 60 0 94/ 62 S 97/ 64 S
Burlington 50/ 28 0 53/ 31 PC 58/ 36 C nautical miles, including Long Island Sound and New York
Tulsa 79/ 57 0 70/ 51 R 72/ 49 S Acapulco 90/ 74 0 83/ 72 S 84/ 73 PC
Casper 59/ 33 0 55/ 29 PC 62/ 42 C Harbor. Southwest Pa.
Virginia Beach 66/ 61 0.10 75/ 52 T 59/ 54 PC Bermuda 67/ 61 0 73/ 69 PC 74/ 69 R
Charlotte 66/ 61 1.67 78/ 55 PC 75/ 54 T Washington 62/ 53 0.06 63/ 50 R 62/ 51 PC Edmonton 54/ 34 0 58/ 33 PC 64/ 39 PC A small craft advisory is warranted for a northeast wind 55/43 Spotty morning showers
Chattanooga 69/ 57 1.03 75/ 55 PC 74/ 50 T Guadalajara 90/ 56 0 92/ 54 S 92/ 59 PC at 15-25 knots. Wave heights around a foot on New York 50s
Wichita 80/ 55 0 67/ 45 R 72/ 47 S
Chicago 59/ 44 0.12 56/ 44 Sh 49/ 40 R Wilmington, Del. 60/ 50 0.05 56/ 45 R 62/ 46 PC Havana 91/ 72 0 93/ 76 T 93/ 74 S Harbor, 1-3 feet on New York Harbor and 4-8 feet on the
Cincinnati 58/ 50 0.43 67/ 51 PC 63/ 47 R Kingston 88/ 77 0 88/ 78 W 89/ 77 W
West Virginia
ocean. Visibility poor in rain. 60s
Cleveland 60/ 42 0.09 53/ 39 PC 62/ 43 R Africa Yesterday Today Tomorrow Martinique 86/ 74 0.03 88/ 72 W 89/ 74 Sh 56/43 A few morning showers
Colorado Springs 65/ 37 0 56/ 36 PC 63/ 42 PC Algiers 66/ 54 0.02 71/ 58 PC 74/ 56 R Mexico City 82/ 58 0 79/ 57 T 79/ 54 T High Tides
Columbus 58/ 48 0.09 63/ 45 PC 63/ 46 R Cairo 85/ 61 0 92/ 60 PC 77/ 60 PC Monterrey 92/ 69 0.09 100/ 68 PC 93/ 69 T Color bands
Concord, N.H. 55/ 33 0 52/ 31 R 63/ 36 PC Cape Town 73/ 59 0 73/ 57 PC 80/ 58 S Montreal 44/ 23 0 52/ 30 S 55/ 36 PC Atlantic City .................... 9:09 a.m. .............. 9:20 p.m. Blue Ridge indicate water
Dallas-Ft. Worth 84/ 62 0 87/ 58 S 76/ 55 S Dakar 75/ 65 0 74/ 66 PC 75/ 67 PC Nassau 87/ 75 0 88/ 78 PC 89/ 77 PC Barnegat Inlet ................. 9:24 a.m. .............. 9:31 p.m. 65/47 A few morning showers temperature.
Denver 66/ 37 Tr 56/ 37 PC 62/ 42 C Johannesburg 72/ 50 0 73/ 55 PC 71/ 51 PC Panama City 91/ 74 0.14 89/ 73 T 88/ 75 T The Battery ................... 10:04 a.m. .............. 9:58 p.m.
Des Moines 71/ 51 Tr 64/ 46 R 66/ 44 C Nairobi 71/ 60 0.38 76/ 60 T 73/ 61 C Quebec City 42/ 20 0 50/ 24 S 52/ 30 S Beach Haven ................ 10:50 a.m. ............ 10:54 p.m.
Detroit 49/ 38 0.23 59/ 42 PC 54/ 42 R Tunis 70/ 56 0.06 70/ 58 PC 80/ 61 PC Santo Domingo 91/ 72 0.02 90/ 72 PC 90/ 72 S Bridgeport .................... 12:39 a.m. .............. 1:10 p.m.
El Paso 86/ 65 0 89/ 62 S 88/ 64 S Toronto 41/ 28 Tr 51/ 36 PC 52/ 38 PC City Island ..................... 12:32 a.m. .............. 1:08 p.m.
Clouds and some rain across the south.
Fargo 61/ 43 0 62/ 39 C 58/ 40 PC Asia/Pacific Yesterday Today Tomorrow Vancouver 54/ 47 0.11 59/ 48 C 59/ 44 R
Hartford 51/ 39 0 50/ 35 R 64/ 40 PC Baghdad 97/ 69 0.06 91/ 72 PC 96/ 61 W Fire Island Lt. ................ 10:18 a.m. ............ 10:22 p.m. Northern New England will likely be dry.
Winnipeg 58/ 33 Tr 59/ 36 C 53/ 36 C
Honolulu 84/ 73 0 82/ 71 PC 82/ 70 S Bangkok 100/ 81 0 93/ 78 T 92/ 79 T Montauk Point .............. 10:55 a.m. ............ 11:02 p.m. Afternoon temperatures mainly in the
Houston 87/ 64 0 91/ 64 S 84/ 60 S Beijing 67/ 40 0 84/ 54 S 72/ 50 PC South America Yesterday Today Tomorrow Northport ..................... 12:42 a.m. .............. 1:09 p.m.
Indianapolis 57/ 47 0.60 67/ 52 PC 61/ 44 R Damascus 77/ 54 0 77/ 54 PC 71/ 47 W Buenos Aires 70/ 63 0 72/ 62 C 68/ 62 R Port Washington ........... 12:35 a.m. .............. 1:01 p.m. 50s. It will be dry tonight. Rain will return
Jackson 80/ 53 0.54 81/ 61 S 75/ 53 S Hong Kong 74/ 68 0.16 73/ 67 T 75/ 69 C Caracas 87/ 75 0 85/ 74 Sh 85/ 74 PC Sandy Hook .................... 9:32 a.m. .............. 9:36 p.m. to southern areas tomorrow. New England
Jacksonville 88/ 69 0.55 82/ 65 T 86/ 64 T Jakarta 93/ 78 0.04 90/ 76 T 91/ 77 T Lima 77/ 62 0 73/ 65 PC 74/ 66 S Shinnecock Inlet ............. 9:15 a.m. .............. 9:31 p.m.
Kansas City 72/ 54 Tr 64/ 46 R 68/ 45 PC Jerusalem 71/ 58 0 78/ 56 W 60/ 52 W Quito 68/ 52 0.16 70/ 55 R 70/ 55 R Stamford ...................... 12:38 a.m. .............. 1:06 p.m.
will be dry, with some sunshine. Tem-
Key West 88/ 81 0 89/ 78 PC 88/ 80 PC Karachi 98/ 80 0 93/ 80 W 95/ 80 PC Recife 86/ 74 0.11 87/ 76 Sh 85/ 77 PC Tarrytown ..................... 11:53 a.m. ............ 11:47 p.m. peratures tomorrow afternoon will be in
Las Vegas 90/ 67 0 87/ 67 S 92/ 71 PC Manila 95/ 82 0 96/ 80 S 96/ 80 PC Rio de Janeiro 79/ 69 0 79/ 68 S 80/ 70 S
Lexington 62/ 52 0.64 66/ 50 PC 63/ 47 R Mumbai 92/ 80 0 92/ 83 PC 92/ 81 PC Santiago 66/ 54 0 68/ 46 C 70/ 47 PC
Willets Point .................. 12:32 a.m. .............. 1:10 p.m. the 50s north to near 60 south.
4 VIRUS FALLOUT 8 WHEELS 13 SPORTS

The White House moved to Specialty shops are turning A freshman’s withdrawal from
ensure that big corporations classic cars into electric the draft extended Villanova’s
are not taking emergency brutes with hot torque and streak of two decades without
small-business loans. vintage style. a one-and-done player.

TECH ECONOMY MEDIA FINANCE FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 B1

N

JOBLESS IN AMERICA

2 9
264530009 9 , ,

The 26 million unemployment claims filed in five weeks are roughly the equivalent
of the work forces of 25 states, including Connecticut, Oregon, Kentucky and Arkansas. Millions now
face hard choices on where their money goes, from health insurance to rent to food.

By TIFFANY HSU As millions of Americans lose jobs, take pay

Two days before learning that she would lose
her job, Lissa Gilliam spent hundreds of dollars
online on baby products.
A 37-year-old expectant mother, Ms. Gilliam
had planned to ask local parents in Seattle for
used strollers and secondhand onesies in a bid
to reduce waste. But as the coronavirus pan-
demic ravaged the area, new items delivered in
boxes seemed a safer bet.
She figured she could afford the splurge,
earning $50 an hour as a full-time contractor
designing educational curriculums for a non-
profit. But then, on April 2, her employer
slashed her hours and told her that her contract
would end in early May — a few weeks before
she is to give birth.
Suddenly, like many others, Ms. Gilliam be-
came hyperaware of her expenses. She and her
husband, a high school physics teacher, now
take a painful daily tally of their financial priori-
ties: Is that $5 monthly web magazine sub-
scription really necessary? How much does
watering the garden cost? When will they need
to tap their paltry savings?
“We’re OK for now,” she said. “But the bottom
may fall out from under us.”
cuts, close businesses and absorb family mem-
bers into their homes, they are being forced to
rethink where their money goes. Even before
the scramble for new jobs can begin, people are
cajoling creditors, looking for gig work or sim-
ply cutting back to get through the first few dis-
orienting weeks.
For some, the question is as simple as
whether to spring for a jigsaw puzzle to keep
from going corona crazy, and how much to tip
the delivery person. But for many, the stakes
are far higher: a good credit score sacrificed to
pay off certain bills before others, or ramen din-
ners rationed so that cash for groceries can be
repurposed for an emergency fund.
To save money, heaters have been turned
down, clothing sales ignored and auto insur-
ance policies canceled. Retail sales tumbled 8.7
percent in March, the largest monthly decline
ever. Plans to visit Disneyland, which is closed,
turned into at-home re-enactments and long
sessions with Disney Plus, Animal Crossing
and Zoom. Rents are going unpaid as people
spend weeks waiting for government aid.
“An economic shock like this could have a
CONTINUED ON PAGE B7

Anchored Tankers Flush
With Crude Oil and Cash
By STANLEY REED
The price of oil has plunged, but
the price of finding a place to put it
has soared. And if you are in the
business of providing a temporary
home for the world’s glut of crude,
you’ve hit the jackpot.
More and more massive
tankers at sea are being used sim-
ply to hold the oil — as much as
two million barrels per vessel —
until it is wanted. Other vessels
are busy carrying it to buyers like
China, which is taking advantage
of prices not seen in two decades.
Tankers are in demand, and
their rates, as low as $25,000 a day
in February, have ballooned to
nearly $200,000 a day, even hitting
Close to Losing Her Cafe
As Relief Funds Run Dry
almost $300,000 at one point. By JEANNA SMIALEK
“We are one of the few indus- Samantha Stephens realized
tries making money in this peri- her longtime dream eight years
od,” said Hugo de Stoop, chief ex- ago, opening an oatmeal bar in
ecutive of Belgian-based Euronav, Greenwich Village where
one of the world’s largest tanker customers can build bowls with
companies. The current market toppings that range from chia
for vessels, he added, “is totally seeds and berries to bacon and
and completely unusual.” poached eggs. Now, the coro-
Shipping is a business of wild navirus has left the little company
swings that tax a vessel operator’s fighting for its life.
patience and balance sheet, and Ms. Stephens had methodically
right now tanker owners are prof- prepared to jump into New York’s
iting from the same forces that are competitive dining scene, attend-
causing layoffs and bankruptcies ing culinary school at night while
at oil companies elsewhere. working full time as an invest-
Demand for oil has plummeted ment bank executive assistant.
by about one-third as airplanes When she did, she turned an ini-
CONTINUED ON PAGE B5 tial loan into a small but solid
business, one that pulls in about
$45,000 in revenue each month.
But her shop, OatMeals, a 380-
square-foot cubby that offers oat-
themed pastries and 30 set bowls
— among them “The Hot Date”
and “Truffle RisOATto” — has
suffered a serious blow amid
quarantines. It has forced Ms.
Stephens to make tough choices.
Her story is one of many but
shows why the damage inflicted
on businesses today might cast a
long shadow on the future of the
U.S. economy.
Below is a diary of the decisions
she has made, the hurdles along
the way, and what lies ahead.
CONTINUED ON PAGE B4
Get Back to the Movies?
Theaters Say Not So Fast
By NICOLE SPERLING
and BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES — In recent weeks, a
tentative timeline for reopening
America’s movie theaters began
to take shape. It involved pushing
to get 75 percent of the country’s
5,548 cinemas selling tickets
again this summer, enough to jus-
tify the wide release of two poten-
tial blockbusters: Christopher
Nolan’s mind-bending “Tenet,”
scheduled for July 17, and Dis-
ney’s mega-budget “Mulan,” set
for July 24.
That one-two punch would be
enough to draw moviegoers back
into theaters that had been closed
because of the coronavirus pan-
demic, multiplex operators be-
lieved, allowing Hollywood to sal-
vage part of the blockbuster sea-
son and, perhaps, revive a pas-
time that has taken on symbolic
importance for the American
economy.
But some politicians want their
popcorn now.
Some Republican governors
are urging cinemas to reopen
sooner rather than later, despite
business and public health reali-
ties that make an abrupt relight-
ing of marquees impractical, if not
impossible. To help restart Geor-
gia’s economy, Gov. Brian Kemp
wants theaters to reopen starting
CONTINUED ON PAGE B6

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B2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

The Digest

REAL ESTATE

U.S. Sales of New Homes

The decline was expected,
though economists say it will
grow much worse as the country
Early Rally Vanishes, Leaving Indexes Mixed
Plunged 15.4% in March struggles with a shutdown that By The Associated Press
has thrown millions of people out S&P 500 INDEX An early rally on Wall Street sud-
of work and disrupted wide The S& P 500 Index
New home sales in the United
swaths of the economy. –0.05% denly vanished on Thursday, the
latest example of how fragile the Position of the S& P 500 index at 1-minute intervals on Thursday.
States plunged 15.4 percent in 2,797.80
March as a winding down in the The median price for a new hopes underpinning the stock 2,840
home sold in March was $321,400, market’s monthlong recovery are.
middle of the month, due to the co-
down 2.6 percent from a median The S&P 500 initially shot
ronavirus, began to rattle the price of $330,100 in February.
housing market. higher in the morning, completely
By region of the country, sales
The Commerce Department re- fell a sharp 41.5 percent in the 2,820
ported Thursday that sales of new STOCKS & BONDS
Northeast and were down 38.5 in
single-family homes dropped to a the West. Both regions had states brushing aside another stunning
seasonally adjusted annual rate of that implemented stay-at-home report showing that millions of
627,000 last month after sales had orders sooner than other parts of DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS workers have been losing their 2,800
fallen 4.6 percent in February. the country. ASSOCIATED PRESS jobs by the week. Investors were
+0.17% looking ahead, beyond the current
23,515.26 economic misery, to the prospect Previous close
of a reopening economy amid ex- 2,799.31
2,780
TECHNOLOGY pectations that the coronavirus
outbreak may be leveling off in ar- 10 a.m. Noon 2 p.m. 4 p.m.
Zoom Users Hit 300M eas around the world. Source: Reuters THE NEW YORK TIMES
Despite Security Concerns But all of its gain, which topped
out at 1.6 percent, vanished follow-
Zoom is reporting that its user ing a discouraging report about a Las Vegas Sands jumped 12 per-
base grew by 50 percent, to 300 possible treatment for Covid-19. cent for the largest gain in the S&P
After that, the S&P 500 flipped be-
New-Home Sales 500 after the company said travel
million, in the last three weeks, as NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX
the videoconferencing company tween gains and losses through Annual pace of new private homes restrictions in Macau, where the
fought to quell a backlash around
–0.01% the afternoon and ended the day sold during the month, seasonally casino operator gets the bulk of its
8,494.75 down 0.1 percent. adjusted. revenue, could begin to ease in
security and safety that has seen a
number of governments and firms It’s a microcosm of the extreme JAN. FEB. MARCH May or June.
ban its applications. swings that have gripped markets 800,000 –3.2% +5.9% –15.4% Energy stocks were also strong
Zoom’s chief executive, Eric LOREN ELLIOTT/REUTERS for months, as investors struggle after the price of crude oil rose for
Yuan, gave the numbers on to set prices for where corporate a second straight day after getting
600
profits and the economy will be upended earlier this week.
Wednesday in an update on the and Elon Musk’s venture SpaceX. months into the future. Apache, Devon Energy and Hal-
platform’s 90-day security plan, A Zoom spokesman reiterated Investors sent the S&P 500 400 liburton all rose more than 8 per-
while also outlining the rollout that companies across the world skidding by a third from its record cent, though all three also remain
next week of a version of the app have done exhaustive security re-
10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD in February until a month ago, be- 200 down at least 58 percent for the
with more encryption features. views of its platform and were us- fore the recession hit, on expecta- year.
The German carmaker Daimler ing its services. 0.61% tions that severe economic pain U.S. crude oil for delivery in
was the latest company on Thurs- The coronavirus-driven lock- –0.02 points was on the way. Since then, the in- 0 June rose 19.7 percent to settle at
day to say it had banned use of down of millions of people globally dex has roughly halved its losses $16.50 a barrel. It has recovered
’18 ’19 ’20
Zoom for all corporate content. has driven huge growth platforms on a series of tenuous hopes for after falling below $12 on Monday,
Source: Commerce
Zoom has also been banned by like Zoom, Skype or Microsoft’s the future — hope that a reopen- Department THE NEW YORK TIMES though it remains well below the
many schools around the world Teams application. REUTERS ing economy will allow companies roughly $60 level it started the
to grow profits again, hope that year at. Brent crude, the interna-
massive aid from the Federal Re- and services activity in Europe tional standard, rose 4.7 percent to
serve and Congress can temper and the United States came in $21.33 a barrel.
AUTOMOBILES hicle stalls and airbags that failed the economic pain, and hope that even weaker than economists ex- As stocks closed trading on
to deploy, as well as 124 deaths. Fi- possible treatments for Covid-19 pected, as did a report on sales of Thursday, the House was also set
GM Wins Court Approval nal approval is still required, after
CRUDE OIL (U.S.)
may be on the way. new U.S. homes. The headliner, to vote on another nearly $500 bil-
Of Ignition Switch Deal owners are notified of their rights. $16.50 A report from the Financial though, was the report showing lion in small-business loans and
Since 2014, the defect has led to +$2.72 Times on Thursday afternoon un- another 4.4 million U.S. workers aid for hospitals, a proposal the
General Motors won preliminary recalls of 2.6 million Buick, Cadil- dercut that third hope. It said a po- filed for unemployment benefits Senate approved earlier this
court approval of a $120 million lac, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile, tential antiviral drug for the virus last week. That brought the total week. The Federal Reserve and
settlement with owners who said Pontiac and Saturn models, dat- flopped in a clinical trial, citing over the last five weeks to 26 mil- Congress have promised trillions
defective ignition switches caused ing back over a decade. documents published acciden- lion, or roughly one in six workers. of dollars in aid for the economy
their vehicles to lose value. The Detroit-based automaker tally by the World Health Organi- The S&P 500 finished at and markets, which helped launch
Judge Jesse Furman of the has also paid $2.6 billion in penal- zation. Shares of the company be- 2,797.80, down 1.51 points. The the market’s rally in late March.
United States District Court in ties and settlements. hind the drug, Gilead Sciences, Dow Jones industrial average The yield on the 10-year Treas-
Manhattan granted approval at a GM would fund $70 million of flipped from a 3.3 percent gain to a rose 39.44 points, or 0.2 percent, to ury dropped to 0.61 percent from
hearing conducted by phone. the settlement, while a trust set up GOLD (N.Y.)
4.3 percent loss after the report. 23,515.26 after losing almost all of 0.63 percent late Wednesday.
The accord would resolve the in connection with its 2009 bank- Disheartening data was not in a 409-point gain. The Nasdaq Yields tend to fall when investors
last major piece of litigation over ruptcy would contribute $50 mil- $1,733.30 short supply on Thursday: Pre- composite slipped 0.63 points to are downgrading their expecta-
GM ignition switches linked to ve- lion. REUTERS +$4.60 liminary data on manufacturing 8,494.75. tions for the economy.

What Happened in Stock Markets Yesterday

POWERED BY

S&P 500 2797.80 0.1% Nasdaq Composite Index 8494.75 0.01% Dow Jones industrials 23515.26 0.2%

3,400 + 5% + 5% 30,000 + 5%

0% 0% 0%
3,200 9,000 28,000
– 5% – 5% – 5%
3,000
26,000
–10% –10% –10%
2,800 8,000
24,000
–15% –15% –15%
2,600
–20% 7,000 –20% 22,000 –20%
2,400
20,000
2,200
6,000

Feb. March Apr. Feb. March Apr. Feb. March Apr.

TOTAL
Best performers Worst performers Most active TOTAL RETURN
ASSETS
VOLUME
S&P 500 COMPANIES CLOSE CHANGE S&P 500 COMPANIES CLOSE CHANGE S&P 500 COMPANIES CLOSE CHANGE IN MIL. Large capitalization stock funds 1 YR 5 YRS IN BIL.

1. Cimarex Energ (XEC) $22.80 +12.5% 1. Invesco (IVZ) $7.24 –21.1% 1. GE (GE) $6.52 +1.4% $82.5 1. Vanguard 500 Index Admiral(VFIAX) –2.7% +7.9% $254.9
2. LVSC (LVS) 45.96 +12.0 2. Citrix Syste (CTXS) 141.56 –6.7 2. AMD (AMD) 55.90 –.0 68.4 2. Vanguard Total Stock Mkt Idx Adm(VTSAX) –5.0 +7.0 197.0
3. Apache (APA) 10.50 +11.5 3. TechnipFMC (FTI) 7.71 –6.7 3. Gilead Scien (GILD) 77.78 –4.3 65.3 3. Fidelity 500 Index(FXAIX) –2.7 +8.0 187.8
4. Old Dominion (ODFL) 141.25 +10.1 4. W W Grainger (GWW) 258.43 –6.4 4. Ford Motor (F) 4.89 +2.5 61.7 4. Vanguard Institutional Index Instl Pl(VIIIX) –2.7 +8.0 100.3
5. Alliance Data (ADS) 40.39 +10.1 5. Seagate Tech (STX) 47.89 –5.6 5. Occidental (OXY) 13.87 +6.5 54.9 5. Fidelity Contrafund(FCNTX) +4.1 +10.8 80.0
6. Fluor (FLR) 8.89 +8.8 6. Arconic (ARNC) 8.82 –5.2 6. American Airl (AAL) 10.25 –0.2 54.3 6. American Funds Growth Fund of Amer A(AGTHX) +1.8 +9.5 78.5
7. Wynn Resorts (WYNN) 76.05 +8.6 7. Aimco (AIV) 35.14 –4.9 7. BofAML (BAC) 21.87 +0.3 50.4 7. Dodge & Cox Stock(DODGX) –16.9 +3.5 51.8
8. Live Nation (LYV) 39.45 +8.5 8. Willis Tower (WLTW) 177.00 –4.8 8. Marathn Oil (MRO) 4.84 +6.8 47.7 8. American Funds Invmt Co of Amer A(AIVSX) –5.4 +5.8 50.3
9. Devon Energy (DVN) 10.57 +8.5 9. Thermo Fisher (TMO) 320.51 –4.5 9. Carnivl (CCL) 12.17 +4.6 46.6 9. American Funds Washington Mutual A(AWSHX) –6.9 +6.5 48.7
10. Royal Carib C (RCL) 36.88 +8.4 10. Hershey (HSY) 136.91 –4.5 10. Halliburton (HAL) 8.92 +8.4 43.7 10. Vanguard PRIMECAP Adm(VPMAX) –6.4 +8.2 48.4
Source: Morningstar

Sector performance How stock markets fared yesterday in Asia … … in Europe … and in the Americas.
S&P 500 SECTORS
+2.0
Energy +3.0%
Industrials +0.8 +1.5
Communication services +0.7 Tokyo +1.5%
Materials +0.5 +1.0

Health care +0.5

+0.5
Consumer discretionary +0.3
London +1.0%
–0.4 Financials New York –0.1%
0.0
–0.7 Information technology Toronto –0.3%
Shanghai –0.2%
–1.0 Consumer staples –0.5
Frankfurt +1.0%
–1.2 Real estate Major stock market indexes
–1.8 Utilities –1.0
6 p.m. E.T. 8 10 12 a.m. 2 4 6 a.m. 8 10 12 p.m. 2 4 6 p.m.

What Is Happening in Other Markets and the Economy

Bonds Currencies Consumer rates Commodities Economy

10-year Treas. Key rates 1 euro = $1.0779 Crude oil Unemployment Rate Consumer confidence
3% $1.3
6% $100 a barrel 130
5%
1.2 Borrowing rate 120
2
30-year fixed mortgages
5 50 110
Fed Funds 2-year Treas. 1.1 4
1
100

0 1.0 4 0 3 90
’19 ’20 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’19 ’20 ’12 ’14 ’16 ’18 ’20 ’16 ’18 ’20 ’16 ’18 ’20

3
Yield curve $1 = 107.61 yen Corn New-home sales Industrial production
3% 120 $6 a bushel
1-YEAR AGO 2 700 thousand 270
2 110 4
Savings rate 600 260
1 1-year CDs
1 YESTERDAY 100 2 500 250

0 Maturity 90 0 0 400 240

3 6 2 5 10 30 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’19 ’20 ’10 ’15 ’20 ’12 ’14 ’16 ’18 ’20 ’16 ’18 ’20 ’16 ’18 ’20
Months Years

Virus Briefing
THE ECONOMY
Federal Reserve May Have
To Rescue Strapped States
Senator Mitch McConnell, the ma-
jority leader, shot down the possi-
bility of additional federal aid for
state governments, suggesting
that they should instead be al-
lowed to declare bankruptcy. His
comments could leave the Federal
Reserve at the center of helping
strapped state and local leaders.
“This whole business of addi-
tional assistance for state and lo-
cal governments needs to be thor-
oughly evaluated,” Mr. McCon-
nell, a Republican from Kentucky,
said in an interview with a conser-
vative radio host on Wednesday.
“There’s not going to be any de-
sire on the Republican side to bail
out state pensions by borrowing
money from future generations.”
States cannot declare bank-
ruptcy to restructure their debt,
though local governments some-
times do. That means that when
cash shortages crop up — like
now, as coronavirus quarantines
delay income tax filings and tank
other sources of income, like casi-
no revenue, just as costs sky-
rocket — they must tax more,
slash spending or issue more debt.
If the federal government is not
willing to come through with the
cash that states need to cover ex-
penses, they will probably turn to
the third option, which is where
the Fed will come in. The central
bank announced this month that it
would begin buying short-term
debt from states and some large
cities and counties.
States are already laying plans
to tap the program, and lawmak-
ers from both parties have called
on the Fed to make it broader and
more inclusive of smaller local
governments, something officials
have signaled that they are work-
ing to do. The Fed has yet to give a
start date for the program.
The CARES Act did provide
some funding to the state and local
governments in the form of a $150
billion relief fund. That was insuf-
ficient to plug the hole coro-
navirus has shot through budgets,
though, and governments could
again be forced to lay off teachers
and other public workers. A simi-
lar scenario played out in the
wake of the 2008 financial crisis,
hampering the economic recov-
ery.
TECHNOLOGY
Amid Lockdown Orders,
Intel’s Revenue Soars
Intel, one of the world’s largest
computer chip makers, said
Thursday that revenue climbed 23
percent to $19.8 billion during the
quarter ending in March, an indi-
cation that parts of the computer
industry are thriving amid the co-
ronavirus pandemic.
The company expects revenue
to be $18.5 billion in the current
quarter — up $2 billion from last
year.
Sales of the Intel computer
server chips that help drive inter-
net services increased signifi-
cantly during the quarter, as peo-
ple across the globe spent more
time on the internet during quar-
antine, straining the internet’s in-
frastructure. Intel’s data center
revenue, which includes server
chips, rose 43 percent compared
with the same quarter last year.
Sales of the chips that drive PCs
and laptops climbed 14 percent.
Texas Instruments, another
major chip maker, reported re-
sults on Thursday mirroring In-
tel’s.
RETAIL
Macy’s Faces Backlash
Over Fireworks Show
When Mayor Bill de Blasio of New
York said on Wednesday that Ma-
cy’s and its chief executive, Jeff
Gennette, were committed to
holding its annual Fourth of July
fireworks display, he called the
gesture “generous” and “really
patriotic.”
But critics questioned the ex-
pense at a time when most of Ma-
cy’s 123,000 employees have been
furloughed. The retailer, which
also owns Bloomingdales and
Bluemercury, is facing intense fi-
nancial pressure with the tempo-
rary closure of its stores.
“Macy’s should not be spending
millions on fireworks displays
while its own work force is out of
work,” Stuart Appelbaum, presi-
dent of the Retail, Wholesale and
Department Store Union, said in a
statement on Thursday. The com-
pany should be spending the
money on health care coverage
for employees instead, he added.
Macy’s does not disclose the
cost of the show, though Mr. de
Blasio suggested in a briefing on
Thursday that this year’s display
might be more modest. Macy’s
said the display dates to 1976 and
that this year’s show “will be a cel-
ebration of the strength and resil-
ience of New York City and will
honor frontline workers across
America.”
Mr. de Blasio defended the
plans to proceed with the pyro-
technics show. “I don’t think it’s an
either-or,” he said. “Macy’s put
aside the resources to provide this
celebration.” The cost of the show,
he added, was “small compared to
the needs of working people.”
Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cough Safely
By NOAM SCHEIBER
and MICHAEL CORKERY
Workers at a Smithfield Foods
pork plant in Milan, Mo., say that
for years they have endured re-
petitive stress injuries on the
meat processing line — and uri-
nary tract infections because they
had so few bathroom breaks.
But as the coronavirus pan-
demic has emerged, workers say
they have encountered another
health complication: reluctance to
cover their mouths while cough-
ing or to clean their faces after
sneezing, because this can cause
them to miss a piece of meat as it
goes by, creating a risk of disci-
plinary action.
The claims appear in a com-
plaint filed Thursday in federal
court by an anonymous Smith-
field worker and the Rural Com-
munity Workers Alliance, a local
advocacy group whose leadership
council includes several other
Smithfield workers.
The complaint also seeks to test
a novel legal question: whether
health hazards at the plant
present a public nuisance.
Coronavirus infections have
emerged as a significant problem
at meatpacking plants around the
country, with some closing and
many others operating well below
capacity. At least 10 workers in
meatpacking and three workers
in food processing have died of
Covid-19, leaders of the United
Food and Commercial Workers
union said on Thursday. About
6,500 employees either have con-
tracted the virus, missed work be-
cause they had to self quarantine,
or are waiting for tests or show
symptoms, they said.
Officials of the union, which rep-
resents a vast majority of the
workers in the pork and beef in-
dustries, said recent plant clos-
ings had reduced national beef
production 10 percent and pork
production 25 percent.
The court complaint about the
Smithfield pork plant in Missouri,
which is not unionized, says work-
ers are typically required to stand
almost shoulder to shoulder, must
often go hours without being able
to clean or sanitize their hands,
and have difficulty taking sick
leave.
“Since before the Covid-19,
there was a problem with bath-
room breaks,” said Axel Fuentes,
the executive director of the work-
ers alliance. But beginning in
March, he said, “day after day,
more people are concerned and
scared about getting infected with
the coronavirus.”
Mr. Fuentes said that some
workers at the plant had shown
symptoms like cough and fever
but that few, if any, had been
tested.
Smithfield said the complaint
was without merit. “The health
and safety of our employees is our
top priority at all times,” said
Keira Lombardo, the company’s
executive vice president for cor-
porate affairs and compliance.
She cited a policy of not comment-
ing on pending litigation, but she
said the accusations “include
claims previously made against
the company that have been in-
vestigated and determined to be
unfounded.”
Smithfield has shuttered a plant
in Wisconsin and a plant in Martin
City, Mo., in addition to a South
Dakota slaughterhouse that em-
ploys hundreds of workers who
have been infected by the virus.
Tyson Foods has closed plants in
Indiana, Washington and Iowa,
one of which has reopened, and
plants owned by other companies
in Minnesota and Illinois have ex-
perienced outbreaks.
The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, which toured the
South Dakota facility last week,
recommended Thursday that
Smithfield establish more social
distancing barriers and possibly
slow down the production line
there to create more space be-
tween workers.
Beyond seeking to make work-
ers safer, the complaint about the
plant in Milan, Mo., is testing
whether public nuisance laws dat-
ing back hundreds of years can be
THE REPUBLIC OF
ARGENTINA ANNOUNCES
COMMENCEMENT OF
INVITATION TO EXCHANGE
Buenos Aires, Argentina: On April 21,
2020, the Republic of Argentina announced it is
inviting holders of its outstanding USD Discounts
due 2033 (ISIN No. US040114GL81), USD
Discounts due 2033 (ISIN No. XS0501194756),
USD Discounts due 2033 (ISIN No.
XS0501195050), Euro Discounts due 2033 (ISIN
No. XS0205545840), Euro Discounts due 2033
(ISIN No. XS0501195134), Euro Discounts due
2033 (ISIN No. XS0501195308), USD Pars due
2038 (ISIN No. US040114GK09), USD Pars due
2038 (ISIN No. XS0501195647), USD Pars due
2038 (ISIN No. XS0501195720), Euro Pars due
2038 (ISIN No. XS0205537581), Euro Pars due
2038 (ISIN No. XS0501195993), Euro Pars due
2038 (ISIN No. XS0501196025), USD 6.875%
Bonds due 2021 (ISIN Nos. US040114GW47
and USP04808AA23), USD 5.625% Bonds
due 2022 (ISIN Nos. US040114HK99 and
USP04808AL87), USD 4.625% Bonds due
2023 (ISIN No. US040114HP86), Euro 3.875%
Bonds due 2022 (ISIN No. XS1503160225),
Euro 3.375% Bonds due 2023 (ISIN No.
XS1715303340), Swiss Franc-denominated
3.375% Bonds due 2020 (ISIN No.
CH0361824458), USD 7.500% Bonds due 2026
(ISIN Nos. US040114GX20, USP04808AC88
THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
VIRUS FALLOUT
Axel Fuentes, head of the Rural Community Workers Alliance, said workplace concerns have lately shifted to the risk of exposure and infection.
Workers butchering pork at a Smithfield Foods plant in Milan, Mo.
used to protect workers on the job.
The plaintiffs argue that Smith-
field, by failing to take adequate
safety measures, risks a coro-
navirus outbreak that could
quickly spread to the entire com-
munity.
“It exists in any state — the idea
of bringing the public nuisance,”
said Karla Gilbride, a lawyer with
Public Justice, a legal advocacy
group that has worked with the
Smithfield workers in Milan for
several years and is helping to
bring the complaint.
“If, whether it’s a private com-
pany or a private citizen, they’re
operating something on their
property and whatever they’re
doing is unsafe and poses a dan-
ger to the entire community,” Ms.
Gilbride said, “then the public has
a right to safety and health.”
The lawsuit seeks to force
Smithfield to change its practices
at the plant but asks no monetary
penalties or compensation. The
case includes a second count un-
der Missouri common law that re-
quires employers to provide safe
workplaces, but is being brought
in federal court primarily because
the parties to the complaint reside
in different states. A public inter-
est legal group called Towards
Justice is also involved.
Thomas McGarity, a professor
at the University of Texas Law
School, said the public nuisance
doctrine had been successfully
applied more recently in envi-
ronmental cases, including those
where animal runoff or chemicals
had polluted the local water sup-
ply. He said nuisance cases involv-
ing pathogens had historically
been successful as well, though
they typically involved pathogens
that could be spread through in-
sects or other animals.
In a Colorado case from the
early 20th century, a judge or-
dered a defendant to stop operat-
and US040114GS35), USD 6.875% Bonds
due 2027 (ISIN Nos. US040114HL72 and
USP04808AM60), USD 5.875% Bonds due
2028 (ISIN No.US040114HQ69), USD 6.625%
Bonds due 2028 (ISIN Nos. US040114HF05 and
USP04808AJ32), USD 7.125% Bonds due 2036
(ISIN Nos. US040114HG87, USP04808AK05
and US040114HE30), Euro 5.000% Bonds due
2027 (ISIN No. XS1503160498), Euro 5.250%
Bonds due 2028 (ISIN No. XS1715303779),
USD 7.625% Bonds due 2046 (ISIN Nos.
US040114GY03, USP04808AE45 and
US040114GU80), USD 6.875% Bonds due
2048 (ISIN No. US040114HR43), USD 7.125%
Bonds due 2117 (ISIN Nos. USP04808AN44,
US040114HM55 and US040114HN39) and
Euro 6.250% Bonds due 2047 (ISIN No.
XS1715535123) to exchange those instruments
for new bonds to be issued by the Republic.
The overall purpose of the Invitation is for the
Republic to obtain the relief needed to restore
the sustainability of the Republic’s external debt.
More information, and any further notifications
with regards to this invitation, will be available
at: https://sites.dfkingltd.com/argentina. This
announcement shall not constitute an offer to sell
or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities
nor will there be any sale of these securities in
any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer,
solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to
registration or qualification under the securities
laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.
DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG
ing a ranch in which he fed
garbage and discarded meat to
hogs, sickening them and risking
the spread of disease throughout
the community.
“The vector is not a mosquito,
it’s a worker — that’s what distin-
guishes this case from a classic
nuisance case,” Mr. McGarity
said. “But if you think about the
nature of this coronavirus and the
fact that it you can be shedding the
coronavirus without displaying
any of the symptoms, it’s not so far
different from a mosquito.”
He said that if the suit against
Smithfield was successful, a judge
would probably require the com-
pany to use the best available
technology to reduce the risk of
contagion, such as better protec-
tive equipment and spacing.
Mr. Fuentes, the director of the
IN THE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE
In re:
Chapter 11
Case No. 20-10290 (LSS)
VALERITAS HOLDINGS, INC., et al., 1
(Jointly Administered)
Debtors.
D.I.: 326
PUBLICATION NOTICE OF (I) APPROVAL OF COMBINED
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT AND PLAN ON AN INTERIM
BASIS FOR SOLICITATION PURPOSES ONLY; (II)
HEARING TO CONSIDER (A) FINAL APPROVAL OF
COMBINED DISCLOSURE STATEMENT AND PLAN AND (B)
CONFIRMATION OF COMBINED DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
AND PLAN; (III) DEADLINE FOR VOTING ON COMBINED
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT AND PLAN; AND (IV)
DEADLINE FOR FILING OBJECTIONS TO CONFIRMATION
OF COMBINED DISCLOSURE STATEMENT AND PLAN
On April 7,2020,the above-captioned debtors and debtors in possession
(the “Debtors”) filed the Debtors’ Combined Disclosure Statement and Joint
Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation [D.I.283] (as may be amended, modified, or
supplemented,the“Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan”).
The Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan explains the Debtors’
plan of liquidation and has been approved on an interim basis by order
of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the
“Bankruptcy Court”) [D.I.326] (the“Interim Approval Order”) for use by the
Debtors in soliciting acceptances or rejections to the Combined Disclosure
Statement and Plan from holders of Impaired Claims entitled to receive
distributions under the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan. Copies
of the Interim Approval Order and the Combined Disclosure Statement and
Plan can be obtained free of charge at the website maintained by Kurtzman
Carson Consultants, LLC (the “Voting Agent”) at http://www.kccllc.net/
valeritas; or by contacting the Voting Agent via email at ValeritasInfo@
kccllc.com with a reference to“Valeritas Holdings”in the subject line;or by
phone at (877) 709-4747 (U.S./Canada) or (424) 236-7228 (International).
Voting On The Plan: Holders of Claims in Classes 2, 3, and 4 (the
“Voting Classes”) are entitled to vote to accept or reject the Plan as they are
impaired and receiving distributions under the Plan; holders of Claims in
Class 1 are Unimpaired and presumed to accept the Plan;holders of Claims
and Interests in Classes 5 and 6 are Impaired and deemed to reject the Plan
as they are receiving nothing under the Plan.If you are a holder of a Claim
against the Debtors as of April 13, 2020 (the“Voting Record Date”) and in
aVoting Class,the deadline by which ballots accepting or rejecting the Plan
must be received is May 28, at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (the “Voting
Deadline”).If you are in a Voting Class,for your vote to be counted,
your Ballot must be properly completed, signed, and returned so
that it is actually received by the Voting Agent before the Voting
Deadline, unless such time is extended in writing by the Debtors,
for your vote to be counted.
• Your Ballot must be returned by (a) first-class mail (using the reply
envelope provided or otherwise as set forth below), (b) overnight courier,
or (c) personal delivery at the following address: Valeritas Holdings Inc.
Balloting Center,c/o Kurtzman Carson Consultants LLC,222 N.Pacific Coast
Highway,Suite 300,El Segundo,CA 90245.
• In addition, Ballots will be accepted if properly completed through
the online balloting portal maintained by the Voting Agent. Holders of
Claims in Voting Classes may submit an electronic Ballot at http://
www.kccllc.net/valeritas. Instructions for electronic, online transmission
of Ballots will be set forth on such website. BALLOTS WILL NOT BE
ACCEPTED BY EMAIL, TELECOPY, OR FACSIMILE. If your Ballot is not
received by the Voting Agent on or before the Voting Deadline, and such
Voting Deadline is not extended by the Debtors, your vote will not be
counted.
Important Information Regarding Releases: If you vote to accept
the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan or abstain from voting, you
must also decide whether to consent to the releases contained in Section
8.7 of the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan. Section 8.7 of the
Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan provide the following third-
party releases:
8.7 Third-Party Release. Third-Party Release. As of the Effective
Date, for good and valuable consideration, the adequacy of which
is hereby confirmed, including the obligations of the Debtors under
the Plan and the contributions of the Released Parties to facilitate
and implement the Plan, and the Releasing Parties having opted
into granting the Third-Party Release, to the fullest extent permis-
sible under applicable law, as such law may be extended after the
Effective Date, each of the Releasing Parties shall be deemed to have
conclusively, absolutely, unconditionally, irrevocably, and forever
released, waived, and discharged each Released Party from any
and all Claims, Interests, obligations, rights, suits, damages, Causes
of Action, remedies, and liabilities whatsoever, whether known or
unknown, foreseen or unforeseen, existing or hereinafter arising, in
law, equity, or otherwise, including any derivative claims, asserted or
assertable on behalf of any of the Debtors or their Estates, that such
Entity would have been legally entitled to assert (whether individu-
ally or collectively), based on or in any way relating to, or in any man-
ner arising from, in whole or in part, the Debtors, the Sale process, the
Chapter 11 Cases, the subject matter of, or the transactions or events
giving rise to, any Claim or Interest that is treated in the Plan, the
business or contractual arrangements between any Debtor and any
Released Party, the restructuring of Claims and Interests prior to or in
the Chapter 11 Cases, the negotiation, formulation, preparation, dis-
semination and filing of the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan
and any related documents (including, for the avoidance of doubt, the
Plan Supplement), the DIP Facility, the Sale process and related docu-
ments, or related agreements, instruments, or other documents, the
local alliance, said that before the
pandemic, the question of bath-
room breaks had been a top con-
cern of workers.
Since the pandemic arrived, Mr.
Fuentes said, the concern has
shifted almost entirely to the risk
of exposure and infection, espe-
cially once schools closed in the
area. “After that, a lot of workers
got really scared,” he said. “The
workers said, ‘The kids are not go-
ing to school, but they’re making
us go to work.”’
Several dozen workers signed a
letter that was delivered to plant
management during the week of
March 30 complaining of cramped
conditions and a lack of protective
equipment and accommodations
for sick leave. It cited the compa-
ny’s policy of assigning workers a
disciplinary point — a tally that
can lead to dismissal — if they
took a day off.
The letter asked the company to
address these concerns and to
slow down processing lines so that
workers had time to cover their
mouths while coughing or to clean
their nose after sneezing.
The company later installed
barriers between some workers
on the line, but the complaint says
the barriers, which hang from
above, often aren’t low enough to
shield their faces. The company
also began providing masks last
week and has carried out tem-
perature checks. Its chief execu-
tive has said that Smithfield is fol-
lowing guidance from the Centers
for Disease Control and Preven-
tion and urged employees: “Do
not report to work if you are sick
pursuit of Confirmation of the Plan, the pursuit of consummation of
the Plan, the administration and implementation of the Plan, or upon
any other act or omission, transaction, agreement, event, or other
occurrencetakingplaceonorbeforetheEffectiveDate(includingprior
to the Petition Date).
Entry of the Confirmation Order shall constitute the Bankruptcy
Court’s approval of the Third-Party Release, which includes by
reference each of the related provisions and definitions contained
in this Plan, and further, shall constitute the Bankruptcy Court’s
finding that the Third-Party Release is: (1) by virtue of the opt-in
procedure, fully consensual; (2) in exchange for the good and valuable
consideration provided by the Released Parties, including pursuant
to the Amended Settlement to facilitate the negotiation and filing
of this Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan and the funding of
the Creditors’Trust, among other things; (3) a good-faith settlement
and compromise of claims released by theThird-Party Release; (4) fair,
equitable, and reasonable; (5) given and made after due notice and
opportunity for hearing; and (6) a bar to any of the Releasing Parties
asserting any claim, Cause of Action, or liability related thereto, of any
kind whatsoever,againstanyoftheReleased Parties ortheirproperty,
released pursuant to the Third-Party Release.
If you decide to consent to these releases, you must check the
“Consent” box on your ballot. If you reject the Combined Disclosure
Statement and Plan, you will be deemed to have decided not to consent
to the third-party releases.
Challenging Your Claim For Voting Purposes Only. If your Claim
waslistedascontingent,unliquidated,ordisputedintheDebtors’Schedules
(as defined in the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan) or if your Claim
is subject to an objection filed by May 18, 2020, you may file a motion (a
“Rule 3018 Motion”) for an order temporarily allowing your Claim in a dif-
ferent classification or amount for purposes of voting to accept or reject
the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan. You must file and serve such
motion on the Debtors so that it is received by May 28,2020 at 4:00 p.m.
(Eastern Daylight Time). Such creditor’s ballot will not be counted unless
temporarily allowed by the Bankruptcy Court for voting purposes, after
noticeandahearingpriortoorattheCombinedHearing(asdefinedbelow).
Combined Hearing and Filing Objections to the Combined
Disclosure Statement and Plan. A hearing to consider final approval
of the adequacy of information contained in the Combined Disclosure
Statement and Plan pursuant to section 1125 of the Bankruptcy Code
and confirmation of the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan
pursuant to section 1129 of the Bankruptcy Code will be held on June
4, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time) before the Honorable
Laurie Selber Silverstein at the Bankruptcy Court, 824 N. Market Street,
6th Floor, Courtroom 2, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 OR via telephonic/
videoconferencing appearance, as applicable (the “Combined Hearing”),
but may be continued from time to time without further notice other
than the announcement by the Debtors of the adjourned date(s) at the
Combined Hearing or any continued hearing or as indicated in any notice
of agenda of matters scheduled for hearing or other notice filed with the
Bankruptcy Court.
The deadline for filing objections to final approval of the Combined
Disclosure Statement and Plan is May 28, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern
Time). Any objection must (a) be in writing, (b) comply with the
Bankruptcy Rules and the Local Rules,and (c) be filed with the Bankruptcy
Court and served upon the parties registered to receive notice through the
Bankruptcy Court’s ECF noticing system, in each case. Unless an objec-
tion is timely filed and served, it may not be considered by the
Bankruptcy Court at the Combined Hearing.
Summary of Key Dates: A table summarizing the key dates is included
below for ease of reference:
DEADLINE/HEARING DATE
Voting Record Date April 13,2020
Date Solicitation Will Commence no later than April 24,2020
Deadline for Debtors to File Plan May 21,2020
Supplement
Voting Deadline May 28,2020 at:4:00 p.m.(EDT)
Deadline to Object to Confirmation May 28,2020 at:4:00 p.m.(EDT)
and Final Approval of Adequacy of
Information
Deadline to File Rule 3018 Motions May 28,2020 at 4:00 p.m.(EDT)
Deadline to File Confirmation Brief June 1,2020
Combined Hearing June 4,2020 at 2:00 p.m.(EDT)
Important Information Regarding Release and Injunction
Provisions: If the Court confirms the Combined Disclosure Statement and
Plan and it becomes effective, the releases and injunctions contained in
Article VIII of the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan will be effec-
tive and you will be bound by these provisions even if you did not vote to
accept the Plan.ArticleVIII of the Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan
contains the following exculpation, release, and injunction provisions (in
addition to the provisions contained in Section 8.7 recited above):
8.4 Injunction. The Confirmation Order shall provide, among
other things, that all Entities who have held, hold or may hold
Claims against or Interests in the Debtors are, with respect to any
such Claims or Interests, permanently enjoined from and after the
Effective Date from taking any of the following actions (other than
actions to enforce any rights or obligations under this Plan): (i)
commencing, conducting or continuing in any manner, directly or
indirectly, any suit, action or other proceeding of any kind (including
any proceeding in a judicial, arbitral, administrative or other forum)
againsttheDebtors,theCreditors’Trust,ortheirrespectiveproperties,
or the LiquidatingTrustee; (ii) enforcing, levying, attaching (including
N B3
CHRISTOPHER SMITH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
or exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms.
You will be paid.”
But according to the complaint,
plant managers discourage work-
ers from taking sick leave, and
Smithfield has done little to ad-
dress the other problems de-
scribed in the letter.
And some company policies
have added to safety concerns. In
March, Smithfield announced that
workers in Milan would receive a
$500 bonus if they worked every
shift they were scheduled for from
April 1 to May 1. According to the
complaint, this has given workers
‘Day after day, more
people are concerned
and scared about
getting infected with
the coronavirus.’
Axel Fuentes of the Rural
Community Workers Alliance.
an incentive to show up “even
when they are experiencing
symptoms,” though the company
later said that workers who
missed time because of Covid ex-
posure would still receive the
money.
“Heroes come in many forms,”
the company wrote in a poster ad-
vertising the bonus, a translation
from the poster’s Spanish version.
“At Smithfield we accept responsi-
bility in everything we do. And we
reward those who accept respon-
sibility.”
any prejudgment attachment), collecting or otherwise recovering by
any manner or means, whether directly or indirectly, any judgment,
award, decree or order against the Debtors or the Creditors’ Trust,
or their respective property, or against the Liquidating Trustee; (iii)
creating, perfecting or otherwise enforcing in any manner, directly
or indirectly, any encumbrance of any kind against the Debtors,
the Creditors’ Trust, or any of their respective property, or against
the Liquidating Trustee; (iv) asserting any right of setoff, directly or
indirectly, against any obligation due the Debtors, the Creditors’Trust,
or their respective property, or the Liquidating Trustee, except as
contemplated or allowed by this Plan; (v) acting or proceeding in any
manner, in any place whatsoever, that does not conform to or comply
with the provisions of this Plan; and (vi) prosecuting or otherwise
asserting any right, claim or cause of action released pursuant to
this Plan, including, without limitation, any right, claim or cause of
action against an Exculpated Party that has been exculpated pursuant
to Section 8.5 of this Plan; provided, however, that the injunction
provided in this Section shall neither bar any Entity from asserting
any defense in an action commenced by or on behalf of any of the
Debtors or the Creditors’Trust, nor prohibit any Entity from asserting
any right expressly preserved or contemplated by this Plan. The
injunction provided for in this Section shall be limited in all respects
to the breadth of the releases and exculpations granted in this Plan.
By accepting Distributions pursuant to this Plan, each Holder of an
Allowed Claim will be deemed to have specifically consented to the
Injunctions set forth in this Section.
8.5 Exculpation. Effective as of the Effective Date, the Exculpated
Parties shall neither have nor incur any liability to any Entity for any
claims or Causes of Action arising prior to or on the Effective Date for
any act taken or omitted to be taken in connection with, or related
to, preparing and filing the Chapter 11 Cases, or formulating, nego-
tiating, preparing, disseminating, implementing, administering,
confirming or effecting the confirmation or consummation of the
Plan, the Disclosure Statement, or any contract, instrument, release
or other agreement or document created or entered into in connec-
tion with the Plan or any other postpetition act taken or omitted to
be taken in connection with the liquidation of the Debtors, the CRG
Settlement, the Amended Settlement, the Disclosure Statement, or
confirmation or consummation of the Plan; provided, however, that
theforegoingprovisionsofthisexculpationshallnotoperatetowaive,
release or otherwise impair: (i) the Retained Actions and any Causes
of Action expressly set forth in and preserved by the Plan or the Plan
Supplement; (ii) any Causes of Action arising from criminal acts, will-
ful misconduct, actual fraud, or gross negligence of such applicable
Exculpated Party as determined by Final Order of the Bankruptcy
Court or any other court of competent jurisdiction; (iii) any of the
indebtedness or obligations incurred under the Plan and the con-
tracts, instruments, releases, indentures, and other agreements and
documents delivered under or in connection with the Plan or assumed
under the Plan or assumed under Final Order of the Bankruptcy Court;
(iv) the rights of any Entity to enforce the Plan and the contracts,
instruments, releases, indentures, and other agreements or docu-
ments delivered under or in connection with the Plan or assumed
under Final Order of the Bankruptcy Court; and/or (v) any Objections
with respect to any Fee Claims in these Chapter 11 Cases; provided,
further, that each Exculpated Party shall be entitled to rely upon the
advice of counsel concerning its respective duties under, or in con-
nection with, the above-referenced documents, actions or inactions.
The foregoing exculpation shall be effective as of the Effective
Date without further notice to or order of the Bankruptcy Court, act
or action under applicable law, regulation, order, or rule or the vote,
consent, authorization, or approval of any Person.
8.6 Releases by the Debtors. Except as otherwise expressly
provided herein or in the Confirmation Order. on the Effective Date,
for good and valuable consideration, to the fullest extent permis-
sible under applicable law, each of the Debtors, and the Liquidating
Trustee, on their own behalf and as a representative of the Estates,
shall, and shall be deemed to, completely and forever release, waive,
void, extinguish and discharge unconditionally, each and all of the
Released Parties of and from any and all Claims, Causes of Action,
obligations, suits, judgments, damages, debts, rights, remedies
and liabilities of any nature whatsoever, whether liquidated or
unliquidated, fixed or Contingent, matured or unmatured, known or
unknown, foreseen or unforeseen, then existing or thereafter arising,
in law, equity or otherwise, that are or may be based in whole or part
on any act, omission, transaction, event or other circumstance taking
place or existing on or prior to the Effective Date (including prior to
the Petition Date) in connection with or related to any of the Debtors,
their respective assets, property and Estates or the Chapter 11 Cases,
that may be asserted by or on behalf of any of the Debtors or their
respective Estates, against any of the Released Parties. The foregoing
releases shall not extend to acts constituting willful misconduct, bad
faith, or gross negligence.
PLEASE NOTE THAT QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS NOTICE SHOULD BE
DIRECTED TO THE VOTING AGENT AT VALERITASINFO@KCCLLC.COM
OR BY TELEPHONE AT (877) 709-4747 (U.S./CANADA) OR (424) 236-
7228 (INTERNATIONAL).
1
The debtors in these chapter 11 cases, along with the last four digits of
each debtor’s federal tax identification number,are:Valeritas Holdings,Inc.
(8907);Valeritas,Inc.(1056);Valeritas Security Corporation (9654);Valeritas
US,LLC (0007). The corporate headquarters and the mailing address for the
debtors is c/o DLA Piper LLP (US),1251 Avenue of the Americas,27th Floor,
New York,New York 10020.
B4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

VIRUS FALLOUT

Treasury and Fed Move

To Allay Public Qualms
By ALAN RAPPEPORT pay loans in full by May 7 will be
and JEANNA SMIALEK deemed by the Small Business
WASHINGTON — The Trump ad- Administration to have made
ministration moved on Thursday their certifications in good faith,
to ensure that large corporations leaving them in good standing
with access to capital are not im- with the government.
properly taking emergency small- At least four public companies,
business loans and the Federal Shake Shack, Kura Sushi USA,
Reserve committed to greater im- Ruth’s Hospitality Group and It-
mediate transparency about how Works, have said that they have
its bailout funds are deployed, already given back the funds from
amid growing concerns about the Paycheck Protection Pro-
how hundreds of billions of dollars gram. Sweetgreen, which is pri-
of economic relief money are be- vately held, also said it had re-
ing allocated. turned its $10 million loan.
The actions came as Congress The Fed, which is infusing even
passed a $484 billion supplemen- more money into the financial sys-
tal relief package to replenish an tem, said on Thursday that it
initial $349 billion program for would publicly disclose the names
small businesses, as well as pro- of companies that benefited from
viding more support for hospitals several of its lending programs.
and expanding coronavirus test- The Fed said it would also re-
ing capacity. lease the amount borrowed and
The Paycheck Protection Pro- interest rate charged as well as
gram, which gives forgivable overall costs, revenues and fees
loans for small companies that on programs backed by Con-
keep workers on the payroll, has gress’s recent appropriations. The
stirred controversy as big, well- Fed Board will publish program
connected companies received reports on its website at least ev-
money before many smaller ones. ery 30 days, without blacking out
With the government required to the information.
provide few details about those re- Congress has handed the Treas- JEENAH MOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

cipients, concern has increased ury Department $454 billion to Sales took a nosedive last month at OatMeals in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village as the coronavirus started spreading in New York.
that the Treasury Department is support Fed lending facilities,
shrouding its programs in secrecy which are meant to keep credit
— and that the Fed, once its own
trillion-dollar efforts are up and
running, will do the same.
flowing through the financial sys-
tem. Using that layer of taxpayer
insurance, the Fed has announced
programs that are meant to help
Close to Losing a Cafe, and a Dream
On Thursday, the Treasury De- FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE through the government — I did-
partment warned big publicly midsize businesses, state govern-
FRIDAY, MARCH 6 n’t realize it was through a bank.”
traded companies that they must ments, and large corporations.
The Last Day of Normalcy “Then I read that banks were
prove they are in need of emer- The Fed chair, Jerome H. Pow-
only lending to their customers. I
gency small-business loans to ell, and Mr. Mnuchin are required “The shop is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. bank with Chase, so I thought I
keep their operations going and to regularly report to Congress on on weekdays, so my staff and I are had to go with Chase,” but it took
have no other option to receive fi- the programs, but it was unclear there by 6:15. We get in early and days for the application to open on
nancing or repay the funds. how much detail they would dis- start cooking the hot oatmeal and the bank’s website. Trish Wexler, a
The department updated its close publicly and in real time. baking the fresh oatmeal pastries. spokeswoman for the company,
“Frequently Asked Questions” “This is a significant victory for We open at 7 a.m. — our main rush said that a simple form was posted
page about the Paycheck Protec- the public,” Bharat Ramamurti, is 8:15, 8:30 to 10:30. That’s our April 3 and that a full application
tion Program to urge “large com- the first member of the Congres- big, busy rush. The deliveries went live April 6.
panies with adequate sources of li- sional Oversight Commission re- start coming in, and we’ve got “Finally, after a few days, they
quidity” to think twice before ap- sponsible for overseeing the Fed multiple tablets,” she said, ex- said they were able to start taking
plying for small-business loans programs, posted on Twitter after plaining that the devices keep the applications, so then I did apply
that are backed by the Small Busi- the release. “You will now know oatmeal baristas posted on take- through Chase.”
ness Administration. on a monthly basis which compa- out orders, which are very popu-
The Small Business Adminis- nies are getting support and how lar. “They all start chirping and SUNDAY, APRIL 12
tration’s $349 billion fund to sup- much support they’re getting.” buzzing at us.” Application Confirmed
port these loans ran out last week The policy outlined on Thurs- Ms. Stephens received a confir-
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11
and is expected to be replenished day will apply to initiatives mation that she had applied for
backed by new funding, the Fed The Decline Begins
this week with another $310 bil- government help four days after
lion. Anger over the program’s said. Those include two corporate “It all got serious overnight — I submitting the Paycheck Protec-
fairness has escalated as some big bond-buying programs, a munici- heard customers talking about it,” tion application. (Ms. Wexler said
restaurant chains, including pal bond-buying program and an Ms. Stephens said of the virus, Chase’s system did not register
Shake Shack, received $10 million effort to help midsize business. which was just beginning to the application until April 11.) It
loans for their subsidiaries. Those efforts are not underway. spread in New York. Revenues left her feeling uncertain, with no
The Treasury Department While the Fed must provide quickly began dropping. “The real information about if or when a
notes that by law, small-business participant information to Con- numbers were down 22 percent reprieve might come. “I didn’t get
loans are intended to be taken in gress while the programs are op- from the previous Wednesday; any additional detail — it just says
cases when the money is “neces- erating, the Dodd-Frank law only Thursday was 24 percent down. ‘soon.’ I don’t know what soon
sary to support the ongoing oper- requires officials to make detailed Friday the 13th they were down 65 means.”
ations.” It said that borrowers disclosures public a year after the percent from the previous Friday.
needed to certify that require- programs end. That Friday we dropped down to THURSDAY, APRIL 16
ment in “good faith” and take into Fed officials have yet to decide just myself and one other employ- Small-business Funds Run Out
account their ability to gain access which set of rules will apply to two ee — on a morning shift, it’s nor-
The initial $349 billion that Con-
to other sources of money, such as of their programs — one that ef- mally three to four of us. Nor-
gress allocated for the CARES Act
issuing stock or selling bonds. fectively buys bundles of con- mally, I’m open until 5 p.m., but it
programs ran out on April 16. Ms.
Treasury Secretary Steven sumer and business debt, called was so dead that we closed at 1
Stephens had yet to hear back —
Mnuchin has warned businesses the Term Asset-Backed Securities p.m.”
nor had any money appeared in
that they will be investigated and Loan Facility, and another that her bank. Even though she knew
TUESDAY, MARCH 17 ANGEL VALENTIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
could face penalties if they im- moves small business loans off the funding had been exhausted,
bank balance sheets. Neither uses Things Get Scary Samantha Stephens, the owner of OatMeals, is waiting out the shutdown in
properly accept small-business Florida. She is eager for any sign that she can return and reopen her store. she thought that she must have
money. He has urged businesses funding from the coronavirus re- The city had announced that gotten across the line before that
to return those funds. lief bill, known as the CARES Act. restaurants could open only for happened.
It remains unclear how the “This seems to me like the Fed takeout and delivery. “I was test- ing-scene websites. her insurance. She did. “Insur- “I was hopeful, because I have a
Treasury Department or the trying to pre-empt some of the is- ing it out, and that Tuesday, I was “I was reading the news, read- ance is not going to cover this.” relationship with Chase, that I
Small Business Administration sues that really plagued them in down 86 percent. It was costing ing any information that was com- would have a foot in the door.”
will pursue investigations of loans and around the financial crisis,” me more to open my doors than I ing in. My vendors and delivery SATURDAY, APRIL 4
that were given to borrowers that said Mark Spindel, who wrote a could bring in, in sales. I really partners were sending out no- The First Application FRIDAY, APRIL 17
should not have been eligible. For book about the Fed as a creature wanted to stay open for the com- tices. There was a lot of misinfor- “The Economic Injury Disaster Bad News
the loans to be fully forgiven, busi- of Congress. “There’s no better munity, I love my regular mation. There was a lot of confus- Loan was the one I knew I could The email from Chase Business
nesses are required to demon- way to be sensitive to the politics customers, and they depend on apply for,” she said. The loan pro-
ing information.” Banking came on Friday, as Ms.
strate to banks that they met re- than to be open about who’s get- their morning oatmeal.” gram, which offers businesses Stephens sat on the couch, her lap-
quirements to maintain staffing ting” the money. “It was myself and one other FRIDAY, MARCH 27 low-interest working capital, had top propped up next to her. The
levels for eight weeks. employee. We worked until 1 p.m., A Potential Lifeline newly been expanded and made funds had run dry before her ap-
The guidance released on David Yaffe-Bellany contributed and I told her: ‘Let me think about to include $10,000 grants. “The plication had made it through.
this. I’ll get in touch with you lat- After weeks of debate in Washing-
Thursday said borrowers that re- reporting from New York. ton, President Trump signed a co- reason that I wasn’t able to submit “We understand that many of
er,’ ” Ms. Stephens said. right away is that the site kept you are disappointed,” the email
It was a major inflection point ronavirus relief package, known
IN THE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure and the Local Rules of Bankruptcy Practice as the CARES Act, into law. It in- changing,” she said, and it re- read.
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE and Procedure of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of for a small-business owner who quired lots of information that she The letdowns and stress have
In re Chapter 11 Delaware;and (e) be filed with the Bankruptcy Court,together with proof depended on steady revenue but cluded funding for small-business
PACE INDUSTRIES, LLC, et al.,1 Case No. 20-10927 (MFW) of service, and served on the following parties so as to be received by no loans, which are forgivable for did not have handy. left her in tears, she said.
realized the need to control costs. “I reached out to my account-
Debtors. (Jointly Administered) later than May 14, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. (prevailing Eastern Time)
firms that keep their employees, “It’s panic and worry, and it’s
NOTICE OF COMMENCEMENT OF CASES UNDER CHAPTER (the “Plan/Disclosure Statement Objection Deadline”): (a) Pace “I was going to order new inven- ant. I needed a couple of details.
11 OF THE BANKRUPTCY CODE -AND- SUMMARY OF JOINT Industries,LLC,481 South Shiloh Drive,Fayetteville,Arkansas 72704 (Attn: and for Economic Injury Disaster fear,” she said. “But over all a bit of
Steffan B. Sarkin and Craig Potter); (b) proposed counsel to the Debtors, tory: my dairy, my fresh fruits. I One day, on April 4, I went through
PREPACKAGED CHAPTER 11 PLAN AND NOTICE OF HEARING
(i) Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York Loan advances, which are meant numbness right now because this
TO CONSIDER (A) ADEQUACY OF DISCLOSURE STATEMENT probably shouldn’t be ordering — it, and I had finally gotten to the
AND SOLICITATION PROCEDURES; (B) CONFIRMATION OF 10019 (Attn: Rachel C. Strickland and Debra M. Sinclair) (rstrickland@
to give small businesses quick ac- is all so weird.”
PLAN OF REORGANIZATION; AND (C) RELATED MATERIALS willkie.com, dsinclair@willkie.com); and (ii) Young Conaway Stargatt & who knows what’s going to hap- point where it was like, OK, you
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT: Taylor, LLP, 1000 North King Street, Rodney Square,Wilmington, DE 19801
pen?” cess to capital. TUESDAY, APRIL 21
1. On April 12, 2020 (the “Petition Date”), Pace Industries, LLC and (Attn:Robert S.Brady,Edmon L.Morton,and Joseph M.Mulvihill) (rbrady@
“As soon as I heard that the gov- can submit. I submitted, and I
its debtor affiliates, as debtors and debtors in possession (collectively, ycst.com, emorton@ycst.com, and jmulvihill@ycst.com); (c) the Office of
the United States Trustee for the District of Delaware (the “U.S.Trustee”),
“I had to text my employees and never received an ‘application Waiting Mode
the “Debtors”), each commenced a case under chapter 11 of title 11
844 King Street,Suite 2207,Lockbox 35,Wilmington,DE 19801,Attn:David say: ‘Hey, guys, I don’t know ernment was somehow going to
of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) in the United States
Buchbinder (david.l.buchbinder@usdoj.gov); (d) McGuireWoods LLP help — the mention of the CARES submitted’ email.” Ms. Stephens relocated to Florida,
Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the“Bankruptcy Court”). On what’s going to happen. I need to “I’m just glad I took a screen-
the Petition Date, the Debtors filed the Joint Prepackaged Chapter 11 Plan (Brian I. Swett, Esq., bswett@mcguirewoods.com) and Richards, Layton &
Act — I thought, well, that’s good. where her long-distance boy-
for Pace Industries, LLC and Its Affiliated Debtors, dated as of April 11, 2020 Finger, P.A., (John Knight, Esq.,knight@rlf.com) as primary and Delaware take you off the schedule.’ At that shot.”
(the“Prepackaged Plan”),2 and a disclosure statement for the Prepackaged counsel to Bank of Montreal in its capacities as administrative agent under That seemed helpful. When there friend has a house, after closing
the Debtors’ prepetition secured revolving credit facility and the Debtors’ point, I thought it was going to be
Plan, dated as of April 11, 2020 (the“Disclosure Statement”), pursuant to
was a mention of some kind of as- her shop so that she wouldn’t have
sections 1125 and 1126(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. postpetition secured revolving credit facility; (e) Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP a week or two. I was really hope- TUESDAY, APRIL 7
Prepackaged Plan and Disclosure Statement (Adam C.Harris, Esq., adam.harris@srz.com and Kelly V.Knight, Esq., kelly.
sistance, especially forgivable as- to wait out the shutdown alone in
2. Copies of the Prepackaged Plan and the Disclosure Statement may knight@srz.com) and Landis Rath & Cobb LLP (Adam Landis,Esq.,landis@ ful.” Scrambling for Cash
be obtained free of charge by visiting the website maintained by the lrclaw.com),as primary and Delaware counsel to TCW Asset Management sistance.” New York. Now, she’s eager for
Debtors’voting agent,Kurtzman Carson Consulting LLC (the“Voting Agent” Company LLC in its capacities as administrative agent and collateral agent
under the Debtors’ prepetition senior secured notes agreement and the WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 Ms. Stephens, worried that she any sign that she can return and
or“KCC”), at http://www.kccllc.net/pace. Copies of the Prepackaged Plan
and the Disclosure Statement may also be obtained by calling the Voting Debtors’postpetition secured term loan financing facility;(f) Gibson Dunn
The Closing TUESDAY, MARCH 31 would not get loans, set up a Go- reopen.
&CrutcherLLP,as counseltocertainholdersofthe Debtors’preferredequity
Agent at (866) 967-0269 or sending an electronic mail message to
(Jeffrey C. Krause, Esq., jkrause@gibsondunn.com); (g) Dorsey & Whitney Missing Rent FundMe page, asking for dona- She never heard back about the
PaceInfo@kccllc.com That Wednesday was the first day first application, but that program
3. The Prepackaged Plan provides for a reorganization transaction LLP, as counsel to certain holders of the Debtors’ preferred equity (Attn:
“Very quickly, I realized that tions to cover her costs. “I tried to
pursuant to which: Larry Makel, Esq., makel.larry@dorsey.com); and (h) Hughes Hubbard & that OatMeals closed its doors, is also out of cash. If she is ap-
• Priority and Secured Claims will be unimpaired. Reed LLP, as counsel to Kenner & Company, Inc.(Kathryn A.Coleman, Esq.,
there’s no way I’m going to be able be very honest and say this money
katie.coleman@hugheshubbard.com) (collectively,the“Notice Parties”). leaving Ms. Stephens at home, proved for money after Congress
• General Unsecured Claims will be unimpaired. would go to my rent, my utilities
• Existing Securities Law Claims will not receive any distribution. Section 341(a) Meeting scared and unsure what to do to pay what I owe on the store.
• Existing Interests will be discharged, cancelled, released and 7. A meeting of creditors pursuant to section 341(a) of the Bankruptcy and my employees,” she said. She adds more funds to the program,
Code (the“Section 341(a) Meeting”) will be deferred until after June 26, next. She scrambled for anything And there’s no separation be-
extinguished.
2020. If the Prepackaged Plan is confirmed by June 26, 2020, the got some backlash for that, be- she’ll use it for missed payments
• Intercompany Claims and Intercompany Interests (other than Pace that could give her a sense of what tween the business and myself — I and wages. If she doesn’t receive
Industries) will either be reinstated or cancelled,as determined by the Debtors will not convene a Section 341(a) Meeting. If the Section cause other restaurants in the
Debtors with the consent of the Required Holders. 341(a) Meeting will be convened,the Debtors will file,serve on the parties might happen, reading newspa- try to keep the lights on in my some help, she doesn’t see how
• The Senior Notes Claims shall be allowed in an aggregate amount on whom it served this notice, and post on the Voting Agent’s website at area were doing GoFundMe cam-
http://kccllc.net/pace,not less than seven (7) days before the date sched- pers, industry newsletters and apartment and my store,” Ms. she will manage after two months
equal to approximately $232.1 million (together with any accrued and paigns that they said were exclu-
unpaid interest, fees and expenses, including any prepayment fee or uled for such meeting,a notice of the date,time,and place of such meeting. mailing lists, and New York din- Stephens said. She knew she of missing her shop rent.
premium,through the Effective Date). The meeting may be adjourned or continued from time to time by notice at sively dedicated to supporting
4. Only holders of Claims in Class 3 (Senior Notes Claims) are entitled the meeting,without further notice to creditors. would miss rent on both, a “really “It’s really hard to imagine; I
to vote to accept or reject the Prepackaged Plan. All other classes of Claims UNLESS AN OBJECTION IS TIMELY SERVED AND FILED IN ACCOR- employees. She thought she
or Interests were either presumed to accept or deemed to reject the DANCE WITH THIS NOTICE, IT MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED BY THE scary” reality. should be as upfront as possible. don’t even want to think about it,”
Prepackaged Plan. On April 11,2020,the Debtors commenced solicitation BANKRUPTCY COURT.
YOU ARE ADVISED TO CAREFULLY REVIEW AND CONSIDER THE
“I emailed the landlords and “We have to have a store to return she said of losing the shop. At the
of votes to accept the Prepackaged Plan from the holders of Claims in Class
3 of record as of April 11, 2020. The deadline for the submission of PREPACKAGED PLAN, INCLUDING THE DISCHARGE, INJUNCTION, said, ‘Hey, I had to close on the to, and to do that, I have to pay the same time, “it’s going to be impos-
RELEASE, AND EXCULPATION PROVISIONS, AS YOUR RIGHTS MAY
votes to accept or reject the Prepackaged Plan was April 11, 2020
at 11:59 p.m. (prevailing Eastern Time). The Prepackaged Plan BE AFFECTED. 18th, and I’m going to get right rent.” sible if we don’t get some assist-
was unanimously accepted by Class 3. Dated: April 15, 2020,Wilmington, Delaware,YOUNG CONAWAY STARGATT back on track, but I’m not going to The effort has raised nearly ance.”
Combined Hearing & TAYLOR, LLP, /s/ Joseph M. Mulvihill , Robert S. Brady (No. 2847), Edmon
5. A combined hearing to consider (a) the adequacy of (i) the L.Morton (No.3856),Joseph M.Mulvihill (No.6061),Rodney Square,1000 be able to pay in April,’ ” she said. $6,000 of its $25,000 goal, largely She keeps in touch with her 11
Disclosure Statement and (ii) the solicitation procedures utilized in con- North King Street, Wilmington, Delaware 19801, Telephone: (302) 571- She was hoping for understand-
nection with the solicitation of votes to accept or reject the Prepackaged 6600, Facsimile: (302) 571-1253, rbrady@ycst.com, emorton@ycst.com, from small donations of $25 or employees, some of whom have
Plan (the “Solicitation Procedures”) and (b) confirmation of the jmulvihill@ycst.com -and- WILLKIE FARR & GALLAGHER LLP, Matthew A. ing, but what she got was a form $50. applied for unemployment insur-
Prepackaged Plan, and any objections thereto, will be held before the Feldman (admitted pro hac vice), Rachel C. Strickland (admitted pro hac
Honorable Judge Mary F. Walrath, United States Bankruptcy Judge, in vice), Debra M. Sinclair (admitted pro hac vice), 787 Seventh Avenue, New email from her store landlord re- ance.
Courtroom 4 of the United States Bankruptcy Court, 824 Market Street, York, New York 10019, Telephone: (212) 728-8000, Facsimile: (212) 728-
8111,mfeldman@willkie.com,rstrickland@willkie.com,dsinclair@willkie. INVESTMENT minding her of her obligation to WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8 “The vibe is good. They’re ex-
5th Floor,Wilmington, Delaware 19801, on May 21, 2020 at 2:30 p.m.
(prevailing Eastern Time) or as soon thereafter as counsel may be heard com,Proposed Counsel to the Debtors and Debtors in Possession
1 PROPERTIES pay the $6,300 monthly rent, and A Second Application cited to get back to OatMeals and
(the“Combined Hearing”). The Combined Hearing may be adjourned from The Debtors in these chapter 11 cases, along with the last four dig-
time to time without further notice other than an announcement of the its of each Debtor’s federal tax identification number, are: KPI Holdings, (600) suggesting that she check in with “Around the same time, I was do what we do best,” she said.
adjourned date or dates in open court or at the Combined Hearing, and LLC (5032); KPI Capital Holdings, Inc. (6489); KPI Holdings, Inc. (6913);
notice of such adjourned date(s) will be available on the electronic case KPI Intermediate Holdings, Inc. (4492); Pace Industries, LLC (6490); Pace Real Estate Misc. 625 reading about the Paycheck Pro- But “they’re panicking, too —
filing docket and the Voting Agent’s website at http://kccllc.net/pace. Industries, Inc. (6822); Pace FQE, LLC (3611); Port City Group, Inc. (6598); tection Program and realizing everybody has their own bills to
6. Any objections to the Disclosure Statement, the Solicitation Muskegon Castings, LLC (6858); Alloy Resources, LLC (0283); and Pace BEAUTIFUL HORSE BARN No day is complete pay.”
Procedures, and/or confirmation of the Prepackaged Plan must: (a) be in Industries of Mexico, L.L.C. (5764). The Debtors’ headquarters are located 25 stall, new riding ring, 7 paddock that it could be partially forgiv-
writing; (b) state the name and address of the objecting party and the
amount and nature of the claim or interest of such party;(c) state the legal
at 481 South Shiloh Drive,Fayetteville,Arkansas 72704.
2
Capitalized terms used but not otherwise defined herein shall have the
& more, electric included at $ 7,800/mo.
Beautiful setting in Bedford N.Y
Call Carlo Fraioli 203-515-6287
without able, so I should definitely try to
and factual basis forand nature of any objection;(d) conform tothe Federal meanings ascribed to such terms in the Prepackaged Plan. The New York Times. get it. I thought it was also Jim Tankersley contributed reporting.
 THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N B5

VIRUS FALLOUT

TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BRONTE WITTPENN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A tanker entering the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas, left, and crude oil storage tanks in Texas City, Texas. Storage rates in tankers, which were as low as $25,000 a day in February, have ballooned to nearly $200,000 a day.

Tankers Anchored Offshore, Flush With Crude and Cash

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE where they are going. As it costs of market analysis at Kpler, which high levels despite already having As shipowners relish the mo-

are parked on runways and cars
sit at home, stilled by lockdowns
aimed at curbing the spread of the
coronavirus. At the same time,
Saudi Arabia and its allies have
ramped up output, as part of a
price war with Russia.
The flood is filling tank farms to
the brim, so traders and
producers are chartering ships
like Mr. de Stoop’s 70 oil tankers to
hold their crude, waiting for a
more advantageous moment to
unload it.
The tanker industry is having
its best spell in at least a decade,
analysts say.
Ships owned by companies like
Euronav are like taxis, waiting for
fares. Most of Euronav’s ships op-
erate at so-called spot rates, es-
sentially whatever they negotiate
with customers, which vary from
day to day.
Oil companies have been char-
tering Euronav’s very large crude
carriers, or V.L.C.C.s — tankers
longer than three football fields —
for $150,000 to $200,000 a day, Mr.
de Stoop said, depending on
about $18,000 a day to run a ship
— for expenses like paying and
feeding a crew of 25 — profits at
the moment are huge.
It’s not always this way. To give
an idea of the ups and downs pos-
sible in the industry, a tanker now
heading from the Middle East to
China will earn on average about
$178,000 a day compared with
$15,000 a year ago, according to
Clarksons, a ship brokerage.
Indeed, Mr. de Stoop has ridden
through some spectacular swings
in recent months. As the new year
dawned, he said, charter rates
were around $120,000 a day, but
they plunged to around $25,000 in
February when the economy in
China, the world’s largest oil im-
porter, essentially shut down to
control the virus spread.
After Saudi Arabia and Russia
kicked off their price war in early
March, rates soared well over
$200,000 a day as the Saudis char-
tered as many as 18 tankers.
The tanker business is receiv-
ing an added boost from the fu-
tures market, where traders are
158M
The number of barrels of oil in
tankers idling offshore, a day
and a half’s worth of global
consumption in normal times.
Shipping is a business
of wild swings for the
balance sheet.
betting that oil in the months
ahead will sell for much higher
prices than the depressed $20 a
barrel that Brent crude, the inter-
national benchmark, fetches now.
Traders figure they can make
money by parking oil on ships and
selling it later.
The volume of oil idling off
places like Fujairah in the United
Arab Emirates or near a Chevron
refinery in Long Beach, Calif., has
soared 40 percent since the begin-
ning of April, to 158 million bar-
rels, said Alexander Booth, head
tracks petroleum shipments. That
is more oil than the world would
consume over a day and a half in
normal times.
Mr. Booth also said that in the
same period the total amount of
crude being carried on ships —
what the industry calls oil on wa-
ter — increased by about 100 mil-
lion barrels to 1.2 billion barrels.
Tankers may have destinations
booked but are encountering long
delays unloading their cargoes as
refineries and other customers
have no use for them.
The huge increase is “a very
strong signifier of how much ex-
cess oil is out there,” he said.
While Saudi Arabia and Russia
agreed on April 12 to end their
price war and cut 9.7 million bar-
rels a day in production, or about
10 percent of world output, by May
1, the Saudis don’t yet seem to be
backing off. Mr. Booth said Saudi
Arabia had been loading an aver-
age of 10 million barrels a day onto
tankers recently, about 2.5 million
more than normal. He said the
Saudis were maintaining these
sent several vessels to sea without
clear destinations for their cargo.
The business of shipping oil
from the Persian Gulf is still
strong, and shipping is much
more profitable than storage: Mr.
de Stoop said storage rates of
around $80,000 a day were about
half what he could charge for a
voyage.
Analysts say that 10 to 15 per-
cent of the world’s very large
crude carriers are now being used
for storage, and that the number is
growing rapidly. In the short term,
this form of demand is likely to
support shipping rates, Mr. de
Stoop said, because each tanker
used to park crude is no longer
available to transport it.
He said there were about 1,500
smaller vessels that could also be
used for this purpose if the supply
of large ones was exhausted. Ris-
ing charter rates may eventually
make this form of storage prohibi-
tively expensive.
“I think we will run out of eco-
nomic sense before we run out of
ships,” he said.
ment, some analysts warn that
this corner of the oil industry is
unlikely to thrive for long because
of depressed demand for crude.
Jonathan Chappell, a shipping
analyst at Evercore ISI, a securi-
ties broker, said the tanker opera-
tors were, in effect, seeing the ac-
tivity of a couple of years
crammed into six months. Once
normality returns, he said, the fu-
tures market will shift, and
traders and companies will liqui-
date the inventories of oil built up
at sea and on land, slashing the
need for ships.
“At some point,” he said, “you
are going to have to work through
the hangover.”
Mr. de Stoop said he was hope-
ful that with conditions in the oil
markets having reached such ex-
tremes as the negative prices re-
corded on Monday, it would take a
long time for the factors benefit-
ing the tanker trade to correct.
“In the meantime, we will enjoy
this extraordinary period of time
from an earnings point of view,” he
said.

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B6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
The $600 Unemployment Booster Shot, State by State
Some without jobs will
get more than they would
have made at work.
By ELLA KOEZE
Before the coronavirus, people re-
ceiving unemployment benefits in
most states got, on average, less
than half their weekly salaries.
Now, as millions file claims,
many are poised to receive more
money than they would have typi-
cally earned in their jobs, thanks
to the additional $600 a week set
aside in the federal stimulus pack-
age for the unemployed.
That calculation is based on an
analysis of the so-called replace-
ment rate, which is the share of a
worker’s wages that is replaced
by unemployment benefits.
Replacement rates for each
state are determined by dividing
the average unemployment pay-
ment by the average 40-hour-a-
week salary of those who receive
benefits. Ernie Tedeschi, a former
Treasury Department official and
an economist at Evercore ISI Re-
search, combined the new stimu-
lus relief with each state’s average
unemployment payment at the
end of 2019 to estimate how much
their replacement rates would in-
crease.
The Massachusetts replace-
ment rate will increase the small-
est amount, he found, though it
still doubles. Mississippi will have
an 88 percentage-point jump,
meaning workers there earning
an average wage will make
roughly $130 more in benefits.
These estimates, which reflect
what tens of thousands of people
around the country may now re-
ceive, come with caveats.
As large portions of the econ-
omy remain closed because of the
outbreak, rendering more than 26
million people without jobs in a
matter of weeks, no one knows for
sure how wages and benefits for
those receiving unemployment
might change as more people en-
ter the ranks. A provision of the
stimulus package, for example, al-
lows part-time and self-employed
workers who would normally not
qualify for unemployment to re-
ceive benefits. That will alter the
makeup of the typical pool of peo-
ple filing claims, not to mention
the average benefit paid out.
The ultimate depth of the eco-
nomic fallout from the virus is un-
clear, as is the question of how
long the government will be able
to provide extra money to help
workers who lost their jobs. And
just because someone qualifies for
unemployment doesn’t mean that
person will receive it quickly.
Why $600 a week?
When you add $600 to the national
average unemployment payment
— $371.88 a week at the end of
2019 — the replacement rate goes
from 38 percent to almost 100 per-
cent. In other words, that amount
is what it would take for Congress
to replace what the average
American worker receiving un-
employment would have earned.
“I would never two months ago
Some Governors Are Eager to Reopen Theaters, but Owners Are More Cautious
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
Monday. Tennessee, where Regal
Cinemas is based, plans to allow
most businesses to reopen at the
end of next week. South Carolina
and Ohio are also restarting their
economies. Texas and Florida are
itching to do the same.
But movie theaters are worried
about opening up too early. They
don’t want to be lumped in with
meatpacking plants and senior
centers as hot spots for the virus.
Already struggling financially,
theaters fear that a too-soon re-
turn could stigmatize them as
dangerous places to congregate.
And with new movies from Holly-
wood not set to debut until the
middle of July — at the earliest —
opening too soon would only make
operators spend money before
they could truly recoup costs from
patrons.
“Hell no, we’re not opening on
Monday,” Chris Escobar, who
owns the 485-seat Plaza Theater
in Atlanta, said by phone. “When
we do, it will not be because of po-
litical pressure. It will be because
leading public health experts say
our lives are no longer at risk.”
He added: “I want to be back in
business right this second. But
we’ve got to be smart about it.
What happens if we open too soon
and contribute to an outbreak?
Traced to the Plaza Theater! You
know what that would do to my
business? I wouldn’t have one.”
Aubrey Stone, the chief execu-
tive of the Georgia Theater Com-
pany, which operates more than
200 screens in Georgia, South Car-
olina, Florida and Virginia, also
said he will not open on Monday.
More realistic would be a July
start, should the virus comply.
“We are not going to reopen un-
Unemployment Compensation During the Pandemic
Workers in more than half of states could receive, on average, more in unemployment benefits than their
normal salaries, when the weekly $600 supplement is added to their typical benefits.
UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS LESS THAN WAGES
Actual
replacement rate
at the end of 2019
0% 20% 40%
Mississippi went
from replacing 31%
of average wages to
an estimated 119%.
Massachusetts had
the smallest change,
from 43% to 93%.
Note: Estimates use average weekly unemployment benefit and average weekly wages
from the last quarter of 2019 and add $600 to the average weekly benefit.
Sources: Department of Labor; Ernie Tedeschi, Evercore ISI Research
til our partners in distribution will
be supplying us with a consistent
supply of new films,” Mr. Stone
wrote in an email.
The major chains declined to
comment.
The industry was heartened to
be included in Phase 1 of Presi-
dent Trump’s broad federal guide-
lines to restart the economy,
grouped with restaurants and
houses of worship rather than
with large concert venues.
Now the chains, which operate
independently but consult one an-
other on best practices, are spend-
ing their time determining what
protocols should be established.
Separating seating within audito-
riums is one idea. Owners are also
contemplating longer intervals
between showings to allow for
deeper cleaning, plexiglass parti-
tions at concession stands, and
primarily touch-free envi-
ronments in which staff members
wear masks and gloves and pa-
trons don’t carry physical tickets.
Hand sanitizer and wipes would
be made available.
Theater companies are desper-
ate to begin doing business again.
They were in a delicate state even
before the pandemic: Attendance
has been on the decline — down 5
percent last year in North Amer-
ica to 1.24 billion — and competi-
tion, most notably from streaming
services, has been on the rise.
Out of business for more than a
month, chains like AMC and
Cineworld are in particularly bad
financial shape. Last week, AMC
staved off bankruptcy by taking
on $500 million in new debt, push-
ing its total to $5.3 billion. The new
funding, AMC said, will allow it to
withstand closures around the
world until November.
VIRUS FALLOUT
60% 80% 100%
California
Massachusetts
Alaska
Illinois
New York
Washington, D.C.
New Hampshire
There is concern that the longer
theaters remain closed, the more
the habit of moviegoing weakens,
especially as studios send more
films — initially intended for the-
atrical release — to video serv-
ices. That list now includes “Ar-
temis Fowl” (Disney), “Trolls
World Tour” (Universal), “The
Love Birds” (Paramount) and
“Scoob!” (Warner Bros.).
But theaters are uneasy about
rushing back for a number of rea-
sons.
Publicly, theater operators have
pointed to supply as the primary
holdup. The major studios have
“Hell no, we’re not opening on Monday,” said Chris Escobar, who owns the 485-seat Plaza in Atlanta.
have ever thought of advocating
for 100 percent income replace-
ment,” said Michele Evermore, a
senior policy analyst at the Na-
tional Employment Law Project.
GREATER THAN WAGES “But then when the pandemic hit,
it was very different. We needed a
Estimated policy mechanism to do some-
replacement rate thing that unemployment insur-
with extra $600 ance doesn’t usually do, and that’s
keep people home.”
120% Unemployment benefits are
typically meant to keep people
Maine afloat but stay low enough to in-
New Mexico centivize them to find a job. Now,
when seeking work may be both
Idaho
fruitless and dangerous, the in-
Iowa centives have nearly reversed.
But if the goal is to replace ev-
Kentucky
eryone’s wages, why not do it in a
Arkansas manner similar to how other
South Dakota countries are paying large per-
centages of worker salaries to pre-
Vermont
vent layoffs? While state unem-
Wyoming ployment systems are revealing
their lack of preparedness for a
Montana crisis of this scale, the United
Mississippi States didn’t have many existing
options to quickly get money to
Alabama the people who will need it, ac-
cording to Ms. Evermore. “The
Nebraska
unemployment insurance system
Oklahoma is the system we have,” she said.
Missouri
Pennsylvania
Kansas
Tennessee
Nevada
North Dakota
Louisiana
Delaware
Arizona
Michigan
Wisconsin
Oregon
Utah
South Carolina
Maryland
A jobs center in Jackson, Miss. More than 26 million Americans have lost
Minnesota their jobs since the coronavirus led to the shutdown of much of the economy.
Rhode Island
And a $600 flat amount, rather
Connecticut
than one relative to each person’s
Florida income, on top of a state’s usual
Texas benefits, is perhaps the simplest
possible policy to enact. “State
Ohio programs are already crashing
North Carolina just under the weight of new
claims,” Ms. Evermore said. “To
Virginia
have them have to reprogram
Indiana their computers to recalculate
Georgia how benefits are paid would be
completely disastrous.”
New Jersey
The extra money will provide
Hawaii
an uneven benefit.
Colorado
While an extra $600 a week is
Washington enough to replace 100 percent of
West Virginia the average national income, the
added benefit will differ depend-
ing on where people are and what
they typically earn. Ms. Evermore
described it as “swinging an ax to
hit an ant.”
A person who earns close to the
average weekly wage will roughly
get their salary replaced on unem-
ployment, but low-wage workers
who lose their jobs are likely to
end up making more than they
were before.
These workers, many of whom
ELLA KOEZE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
work in hard-hit industries like
postponed every big release in the U.S. are open, and major
planned for May and June — markets in particular, new wide-
“Black Widow,” “Top Gun: Maver- release movies are unlikely to be
ick,” “F9,” “Wonder Woman 1984” available,” the National Associa-
— leaving multiplexes with noth- tion of Theater Owners said in a
ing to show even if they wanted to statement on Wednesday.
reopen. Because most summer “As a result, some theaters in
films cost $300 million or more to
some areas that are authorized to
make and market, studios need
open,” the statement added, “will
the majority of theaters to be open not be able to feasibly open.”
before releasing the movies. Behind the scenes, owners are
Bringing them out in staggered working through a more compli-
fashion in the United States is not
cated mix of considerations. Law-
an option, studio executives say,
yers are trying to sort out what
in part because of piracy con- kind of liability theaters could face
cerns. if audience members get infected
“Until the majority of markets with the virus. Some multiplex op-
ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/REUTERS
restaurants and retailing, are also
those who are more likely to be in
urgent need of cash to pay for ne-
cessities. However, because min-
imum and maximum amounts of
unemployment benefits vary by
state, the proportion of people
whose benefits could exceed their
normal salaries will be vastly dif-
ferent by state.
Just over half of workers in Ari-
zona, which had a relatively high
minimum benefit of $172 before
the crisis, are estimated to make
more on unemployment than if
they were still working, according
to Noah Williams, the director of
Center for Research on the Wis-
consin Economy at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison.
Smaller shares of workers
stand to gain as much from unem-
ployment benefits in other states,
he found. Other factors, like the
cost of living, will affect how far an
extra $600 a week will stretch.
Despite the additional benefits,
many people who qualify for un-
employment have been stuck
waiting to receive money as state
systems struggle to process the
sheer number of new claims. And
as of now, the $600 weekly addi-
COURTLAND WELLS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
tional payments will expire at the
end of July. Congress may opt to
extend the deadline in a further
stimulus bill if it seems that the
economy is still struggling badly,
though the cost of extending will
add to the already high price tag of
the policy.
States are paying their usual
benefits while the funds for the
$600 payments, as well as other
unemployment benefits in the
stimulus, are provided by the fed-
eral government. As millions of
people apply, the cost for both
states and the federal government
is enormous.
But Mr. Tedeschi said the $600-
a-week policy, along with other re-
lief measures that put cash di-
rectly in Americans’ pockets, like
$1,200 payments for individuals
and loans for businesses to keep
staff on payroll, demonstrated a
real federal commitment to try to
keep Americans afloat.
“Not only is it bold,” he said,
“but in principle — we can argue
about implementation — but in
principle it’s actually bolder than
what a lot of other advanced econ-
omies have done.”
erators are discussing whether to
require ticket buyers to be part of
a loyalty program, collecting per-
sonal information so the company
can assist authorities with contact
tracing if needed.
Adam Aron, AMC’s chief execu-
tive, previously indicated that he
would rely on public health offi-
cials to guide reopening. “The
health and well-being of AMC
guests and employees, and of all
Americans, takes precedence
above all else,” Mr. Aron said in a
statement last month.
Mark Zoradi, the chief execu-
tive of Cinemark, the No. 3 chain
behind AMC and Regal, told ana-
lysts on an April 15 conference call
that “Cinemark is currently work-
ing toward a midsummer opening
date, contingent upon health and
safety regulations, as well as
availability of studio content.”
Even with all the uncertainty,
many are hoping that “Tenet,” Mr.
Nolan’s film, will mark the real re-
turn of theaters. Mr. Nolan has
been an impassioned advocate for
preserving the moviegoing expe-
rience. In March, he wrote in The
Washington Post that movie the-
aters were “the most affordable
and democratic of our community
gathering places” and urged Con-
gress to include them in the fed-
eral bailout.
“When this crisis passes, the
need for collective human engage-
ment, the need to live and love and
laugh and cry together, will be
more powerful than ever,” Mr. No-
lan wrote. “We don’t just owe it to
the 150,000 workers of this great
American industry to include
them in those we help, we owe it to
ourselves. We need what movies
can offer us.”

Be Nimble and Quick:
‘That’s Key Right Now’
By AMY HAIMERL
The first week after Cristina Mc-
Carter closed her Memphis food
tour company, a casualty of the
pandemic, she had only tears.
“It was a lot of emotions,” she
said. “It was like going back to
when I first started and everyone
said I was crazy to give up my job
to be an entrepreneur. I was like,
this is what my granddaddy was
talking about.”
But then, she had an idea. As
Ms. McCarter saw restaurants in
town reopen to serve takeout, she
realized she could take her busi-
ness, City Tasting Tours, virtual.
She could team up with the
restaurants to create special
meals that she could deliver to cli-
ents along with a link to a 30-
minute video tour about the food,
the chefs and Memphis.
“I realized we could focus on the
local,” she said. “We’re so used to
focusing on tourists, but now is the
time to show the locals the rich-
ness of what you have.”
Like Ms. McCarter, small-busi-
nesses owners across the country
are looking for ways to survive the
coronavirus pandemic, even as
they fill out paperwork for federal
stimulus funds that they no longer
believe they can count on. In-
stead, they are adapting their
business models and innovating
products so that they, and their
employees, can get back to work.
“Small businesses are really
great at staying nimble,” said
Laura Huang, associate professor
at Harvard Business School and
author of “Edge: Turning Adver-
sity Into Advantage.” “This is
something they’ve been set up to
do because they’ve always had to
deal with adversity in some way.”
But it’s hard, too. The most re-
cent Optimism Index, from the
National Federation of Independ-
ent Businesses, fell 8.1 points in
March — the largest monthly drop
in the survey’s 34-year history.
Ninety-two percent of businesses
surveyed recently by the federa-
tion said they had been negatively
affected by the virus; just 3 per-
cent said they were better off.
The ones that succeed, Dr.
Huang said, “understand that
even though they are looking to do
new, innovative things, they need
to grow where they are planted.”
That means that small-business
owners should not completely
change what they do but find new
ways to deliver their product, dust
off old ideas, experiment with ex-
isting strengths, search for new
customers or change their story.
Revive an old idea.
Even before the coronavirus hit,
Food or Rent? Hard Choices
For the Jobless in America
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
long-term impact on people who
have traditionally felt like they
were being cautious, that they
weren’t profligate with their
money, but didn’t have to worry
about paying for rent or affording
food,” said Stephanie Aaronson,
the director of economic studies at
the Brookings Institution. “They
might have more debt, which will
make it harder to spend in the fu-
ture, or they might just feel less
secure, which could boost savings
and potentially dampen the recov-
ery.”
Ms. Gilliam and her husband
are waiting for Washington State
to make jobless benefits available
to contractors through a federal
assistance program, and hope to
take advantage of a state program
for maternity aid once their
daughter is born. A $15,000 con-
struction project planned for the
rear of their house is on hold. They
canceled their gym membership,
their Hulu streaming service,
multiple newspapers and even the
Adobe Acrobat software that Ms.
Gilliam uses for design work.
“We’re trying not to spend
money,” she said. “At a minimum,
we need to hold on to our house.”
Even when the economy was
strong, many Americans were in a
precarious financial position, ill
prepared to weather even minor
disruptions and often weighed
down by debt.
On the whole, Ms. Aaronson
said, household finances “were in
relatively good condition as of six
weeks ago — they were actually
pretty healthy.” Now, she said, “a
much broader swath of house-
holds are experiencing a complete
loss of income compared to what
we typically see in a recession.”
Those people are now relying
on good will from strangers and
programs from corporations and
the government to stay upright.
Foreclosures and evictions have
been suspended. Borrowers have
been offered student loan relief.
Banks, automakers, utilities and
other companies have set up pay-
ment deferral programs.
Before the pandemic, Carol
Cruz’s private health insurance
Kevin Peterson and his wife, Jane
Larson, were notably adaptable —
they own a scent shop in Detroit
that doubles as a bar. Each
evening, the shop’s cupboards
close, display tables become cock-
tail tables, and guests sip cocktails
served with scent strips designed
to enhance their drink.
When the stay-at-home order
was issued in Michigan, their
shop, Castalia at Sfumato, was
about to celebrate its second
birthday. Mr. Peterson was finally
feeling that the business had
turned a corner: Their staff was
stable, he wasn’t working crazy
hours, and there was money left
after they paid the bills.
That changed overnight. They
temporarily laid off their four em-
ployees and went into creation
mode, since Michigan is not allow-
ing bars to sell takeout or delivery
cocktails. In a week, Mr. Peterson
had developed their new product:
frozen juice cubes that allow home
bartenders to mix a perfect drink.
All they have to do is add the spir-
it.
“The big thing for me was not
thinking of a recipe as just the in-
gredients but also the dilution,
aeration and temperature,” said
Mr. Peterson, who went to culi-
nary school and has degrees in
physics and engineering. “That’s
the big difference between drinks
at a bar and drinks at home.”
The idea for a take-home cock-
tail cube had percolated when
Castalia first opened, but the cou-
ple were so focused on getting
people in the bar that they didn’t
have time for extraneous prod-
ucts. Now they are making — and
selling out of — 750 cubes every
weekend. They would do more,
but they are limited to the space in
their home freezer.
“I take solace in doing stuff,” Mr.
Peterson said.
Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Some businesses find themselves
in a position to help fight the pan-
demic. Distilleries like Cathead
Distillery in Jackson, Miss., are
converting production to hand
sanitizer, while apparel compa-
nies, like Simms Fishing Products
in Bozeman, Mont., are making
hospital gowns. Still others are
making masks.
But all that product has to find
its way to hospitals and homeless
shelters. That’s where Garry Coo-
per comes in. His Chicago technol-
ogy firm, Rheaply, specializes in
connecting resources to the peo-
ple who need them to reduce
waste and overbuying.
He normally works with univer-
sities, government agencies and
plan cost her $840 a month — up
from less than $500 four years
ago. The bill ate up most of her
$1,200 monthly paycheck, exceed-
ing even the $600 monthly pay-
ment on the house she shares with
her husband and their 17-year-old
granddaughter in Tulare, Calif.
On March 29, she was fur-
loughed from her part-time job as
a mental health therapist until at
least the end of May. Other than
the state unemployment benefits
she hopes to receive soon, Ms.
Cruz, 62, no longer has an income.
So she got on the phone for at
least three hours a day, asking for
leniency from the health insur-
ance provider, her mortgage lend-
er and the credit union that holds
the loan for her husband’s Chevro-
let truck. All offered her more flex-
ible terms, including 90-day grace
periods and pay-what-you-can op-
tions. (Some creditors, she said,
were less willing to negotiate.)
The adjustments help keep the
bills manageable, Ms. Cruz said.
But her grocery costs have dou-
bled, now that the price of eggs
has soared and her granddaugh-
ter is no longer having free
lunches at school.
“I don’t know about my future,”
Ms. Cruz said. “I’m not letting my-
self think about tomorrow, just
about whether we have food today
and money in the bank.”
But some people, many of
whom have never seriously budg-
eted, are now mapping out strict
spending schedules for the next
few months.
After being furloughed in mid-
March from her bartending and
serving job at a Minneapolis con-
cert hall, Krissy Calbert, 26, went
from earning $300 in tips some
nights to having no income as she
waited for government aid.
“It was two weeks of just panic
— I was just going off the grocer-
ies I already had, trying to ration
until money came in,” she said.
“You get really creative. You eat
little half meals, and you experi-
ment with your seasonings and
condiments to try to forget that
you’re eating the same thing over
and over.”
Earlier this month, Ms. Calbert
THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
VIRUS FALLOUT
BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Jane Larson and Kevin Peterson, the owners of Castalia at Sfumato in Detroit, filmed a guide on using their frozen
mixers. Garry Cooper, right, who helps companies manage inventories, built a site for an exchange of virus supplies.
Cristina McCarter, who owns a food tour company in Memphis, figured out a way to take her business online.
the world’s largest companies to Dr. Cooper is in talks with cities
help them better manage their in- and states about developing
ventories. When the pandemic custom options. He hired three
broke out, he realized that there more employees, and is looking
was no single place to go to find for three additional computer pro-
out who needed what — and who grammers to join his team.
had it. That’s the type of pivot that
“This is a breakdown of Supply Larry Downes, a senior fellow at
Chain 101,” Dr. Cooper said. “We Accenture Research, advises
are a climate tech company, and businesses to make. “Trying
we have been thinking a climate something new is relatively
crisis would cause what we just cheap,” said Mr. Downes, a co-au-
saw.” thor of “Pivot to the Future.” “It
In three weeks, his team built a doesn’t cost a lot to quickly launch
stripped-down exchange — “a an experiment.”
prettier Craigslist,” he called it —
where people with masks could Search for new customers.
list them for donation or sale, and An experiment may be the thing
hospitals that needed ventilators that saves Washbnb, a start-up in
could post their requests. Milwaukee that was to open this
So far, 50 organizations have month.
signed up for the free service, and Originally, Washbnb planned to
RYAN YOUNG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Carol Cruz of Tulare, Calif., left, with her granddaughter Faith, has been seeking relief from creditors after losing her job. With her contract about to end, Lissa
Gilliam of Seattle, top, and her husband, Matiah Shaman, fear the “bottom may fall out.” Krissy Calbert of Minneapolis used to earn $300 in tips some nights.
began receiving a weekly infusion would ruin me.”
of $1,100 from the state. She is now More than half of lower-income
trying to reschedule when adults in the United States say
monthly bills are due so she can they will struggle to pay bills this
space out the payments: $600 for month, compared to a quarter of
rent, $75 for her phone, up to $120 their middle-income counterparts
for utilities, $60 for streaming and 11 percent of those in the up-
services, $200 for credit cards, per-income tier, according to a
plus other expenses. survey of nearly 5,000 adults by
“I’m trying to get all of my cred- Pew Research Center. Re-
it card payments into the same searchers defined a three-person
week, so I can have a credit card household earning $37,500 to
week, a rent week, a phone week,” $112,600 annually as middle-in-
Ms. Calbert said. come. Over all, more than half of
She has switched her grocery those who expect a federal stimu-
shopping from Target to Aldi, lus infusion will use most of the
where, she said, she can afford to money to cover essential ex-
splurge on fresh produce and pro- penses, while one in five say they
tein. Without health insurance, plan to save the funds.
she is willing spend an extra $30 To create a financial buffer,
or $40 on fruits and vegetables in many people are hunting for free-
hopes of keeping her immune sys- lance or part-time work. Searches
tem strong, she said. for work-from-home jobs rose 126
“I can’t take the risk,” Ms. Cal- percent in March on FlexJobs,
bert said. “A hospital bill right now while traffic to the site has
TAYLOR GLASCOCK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
WHITTEN SABBATINI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
provide laundry service to Airbnb
hosts. One of the company’s
founders, Daniel Cruz, is a host
himself, and he hatched the idea
because he was always buried in
laundry — and worse, fitted
sheets — at the end of each week.
His four Airbnb properties creat-
ed too much laundry for his resi-
dential machines but too little for a
lot of commercial laundry facili-
ties. When he discovered that oth-
ers had the same problem, he
started planning to build his own
facility.
But when the pandemic hit Mil-
waukee, all his Airbnb bookings
dried up.
“At first, we were actually really
bullish,” Mr. Cruz said. “We were
talking about investing in another
property to add more units. But
boomed 58 percent from a year
ago. On Upwork, companies are
looking for people to provide tech
support for their homebound em-
ployees and to draft corporate
messages about the coronavirus.
Lonn Dugan, a digital market-
ing specialist in Sylvania, Ohio,
has seen many clients scaling
back their promotional efforts,
such as one nonprofit that cut its
budget by 90 percent after a major
annual event was canceled. But
another client, an agricultural
supply company, commissioned a
website update, while a local men-
tal health group wanted to ramp
up its virtual support groups.
The pressure on Mr. Dugan, 60,
is intense. His workday is three
hours longer than it used to be, be-
tween his existing clients and his
attempts to drum up new busi-
ness. He and his wife lost a third of
their incomes; neither is eligible
N B7
then we took a week and watched
our market evaporate around us.”
Instead, he decided to find new
customers. He realized that the
elderly and people with compro-
mised immune systems might not
have laundry facilities or be able
to go into laundromats. He and his
two partners quickly started a sis-
ter company, Washhero, targeting
those customers with a curbside
laundry service. They offer wash-
and-fold for $20 a bag, as well as
pay-what-you-can options.
In the first two weeks, 22 clients
signed up, and word got around to
other businesses. Mr. Cruz re-
ceived calls from restaurants do-
ing takeout that need towels
washed and an invitation from a
new hotel to bid on its laundry
contract. He has been so busy that
he has hired three new team mem-
bers and signed a lease for his
laundry facility.
“The Covid situation is acceler-
ating our timeline, not only in how
we give back but how we build out
our own facility instead of relying
on partners,” Mr. Cruz said.
Reposition your product.
Sometimes, innovating is as sim-
ple as changing the story, or up-
dating marketing to reflect a new
reality. “If you have a firm under-
standing of where your roots are
and what your product delivers,
then you can think really cre-
atively about all the different
ways your product can be benefi-
cial and tell that story,” said Dr.
Huang of Harvard.
Wheelhaus, a maker of tiny
homes and modular cabins, is try-
ing to do just that. It is now mar-
keting its smallest home — just
250 square feet — as a home office.
It can be pulled straight into a
backyard on a trailer and has all
the amenities of a workplace.
“It’s kind of funny how these
things kick you in the butt,” said
Jamie Mackay, founder of Wheel-
haus. “It’s like, whoa! You wake
up and think outside the box.
That’s key right now.”
The company manufactures its
line of homes in Salt Lake City and
normally sells about 180 a year.
Demand has slipped, but there
has been enough work for Mr.
Mackay to keep all 80 employees
and subcontractors on the job.
There have been seven sales of
the $88,000 home office since the
new marketing began, and Mr.
Mackay said he expected higher
demand for small home offices as
real estate trends changed and
businesses realized employees
could work from home.
The fact that Mr. Mackay is al-
ready thinking about that future
pleases Mr. Downes. The biggest
challenge facing businesses, Mr.
Downes said, is the failure to look
forward.
“One thing this crisis has taught
us is that the distant future can
show up fast,” he said.
RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
CAROLINE YANG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
for government aid.
“We’re completely over-
whelmed by the shortfall. We can
afford groceries and maybe the
house and car payments, and
that’s it,” he said. “But we’re not
alone, and we’re focusing on ac-
ceptance as opposed to hand-
wringing. We’re taking care of ne-
cessities, and that’s enough for
right now.”
Still, Mr. Dugan admits being
stretched thin emotionally. He
misses his wife, even though they
are in the same house and she no
longer needs to make a two-hour
round-trip commute to her health
care job. But the couple are so
busy trying to stay afloat that they
have stopped cooking fresh meals
and turn instead to frozen dinners
and fast food.
“We just don’t have time,” he
said. “We’re exhausted at the end
of the day.”
B8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

AUTOMOBILES | ADVERTISING

Giving Classic Cars an Electric Jolt

Specialty shops are converting vintage vehicles into silent brutes with tire-burning torque.

Wheels
By ROY FURCHGOTT

When Prince Harry married Meghan

Markle, it wasn’t the romance or the
pageantry that set automotive hearts
aflutter. It was the couple’s Jaguar
E-Type Zero, a classic E-type body
fitted with a modern electric drive, that
caused a swoon.
Best of all, mere commoners could
buy one, Jaguar said, for an estimated
$380,000. Until they couldn’t.
In late 2019, more than a year after
the wedding, Jaguar broke the news:
“Jaguar Classic has taken the difficult
decision to pause development of the
all-electric E-Type Zero for the foresee-
able future.”
But fret not. You can still get an elec-
tric E-Type, possibly for less than Jag-
uar would have charged. If you supply
the Jag, “I think we could do it for
$100,000,” said Michael Bream, owner
of EV West, a San Marcos, Calif., con-
version shop that turns gas guzzlers
into electrically charged chariots. His
shop has converted a Dodge A100 van,
a Dowsetts Comet and some BMW
classics, the M3 and 2002. After work-
ing out the kinks on the first E-Type, he
said, the costs could come down to
$50,000.
A convergence of interest in electric
power and classic cars has spawned
specialty shops that turn classics into
silent brutes with tire-burning torque
and vintage style. The problem facing
these shops is that the technology now
advances so quickly that a build may be
outdated before it’s complete. These
shops are now working to speed up
production, bring down costs and put
bolt-on car conversion kits into hobby-
ists’ hands.
The conversion market came to life
during the 1970s oil crisis, when gas
prices skyrocketed and around-the- STEVE PARSONS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

block lines formed at the pumps. “Peo- After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got married in 2018, their chariot was a Jaguar E-Type Zero, a classic body with a modern electric engine. Jaguar paused production a year later.

‘It’s still crazy

expensive to do a
conversion, but I
hope the day will
come when it isn’t.’
Marc Geller, a board member of
the advocacy group Electric
Auto Association.

ple were trying to screw Big Oil, driv-

ing their car with a forklift motor in it,”
said Marc Davis, founder of Moment
Motor Company, a conversion shop in
Austin, Texas.
When the crisis ended, so did interest
in electric cars. There was a resurgence
in the 1990s when California essentially
forced major manufacturers to offer
zero-emissions vehicles if they wanted
to sell their gas-powered cars there.
The fate of the General Motors EV1, its
response to the California edict, was the
basis for the 2006 documentary “Who
Killed the Electric Car?”
In recent years, electric motor tech-
nology has advanced rapidly, most
visibly in Elon Musk’s Tesla, which has
propelled the resurgence of interest in
electric.
Mr. Bream found fault with the think-
ing of car manufacturers like Toyota,
which produced the Prius, and Nissan,
which produced the Leaf. Those cars
were marketed as a save-the-planet
alternative to internal combustion
vehicles.
“No one buys a car to save the envi-
ronment,” he said. “I was like, ‘How
come there are no electric speed
shops?’”
Mr. Bream addressed that deficit
with an electric E36 BMW M3 that
drew attention in the 2012 Pikes Peak
International Hill Climb race. After-
ward, when he decided to electrify a
Porsche, word got around.
“People started to call me: ‘Hey, we
are trying to do this, too,’” he said. A
business was born.
Jonathan Ward, owner of Icon, a retro-modder in Los Angeles, is converting a 1949 Mercury, left, to electric. Zelectric, in San Diego, specializes in 1950s and ’60s Beetles and Porsches.
Jaguar wasn’t the only company to
tantalize vintage-car aficionados with
classic conversions. A Volkswagen
project that put the carmaker’s electric
e-Up guts into a classic Beetle led some
to think VW would put conversions into
production. In fact, VW had collabo-
rated with eClassics, a shop in Ger-
many, which produced the e-Beetle,
reported to sell for $110,000. Availability
is unknown. The shop did not respond
to a query from The New York Times.
But you can get an electric Bug from
Zelectric, a conversion shop in San
Diego. It specializes in 1950s and ’60s
Beetles and Porsches, which, owing to
their rear-engine layout, are among the
easiest cars to convert.
Zelectric’s owner, David Benardo,
was in advertising when he decided to
build his own electric Bug. “I docu-
mented it on social media, and people
asked me, ‘Can you make me one?’”
He can. Prices start at $62,000. Add-
ons like air conditioning can run
$10,000 and full restoration another
$50,000, which can drive the price as
ICON
high as $170,000.
Mr. Davis’s Moment Motor Company
specializes in converting front-engine,
rear-wheel-drive vehicles. It mounts an
electric motor to a car’s existing trans-
mission so a driver can still bang
through the gears.
“It’s keeping that feeling of four-on-
the-floor,” Mr. Davis said, acknowledg-
ing that geared transmissions gobble
more battery power. “It’s not about
creating the longest-range kind of vehi-
cles.”
He said he had converted BMW
2002s, a Datsun 280Z, an Alfa Romeo
GTV, a Toyota Hilux, a Porsche 911 and
others for roughly $50,000 to $150,000.
Dyed-in-the-wool electric-car enthu-
siasts say paying $60,000 for a 1960s
electric Beetle seems silly, especially
when you can find a pre-owned, fully
operational electric Leaf, Prius or RAV4
E.V. for less than $5,000.
“It becomes a niche product for the
wealthy who can’t live without an elec-
tric 1950 Citroën DS station wagon,”
said Marc Geller, who is on the board of
the Electric Auto Association, an advo-
cacy group founded in 1967. “It’s still
crazy expensive to do a conversion, but
I hope the day will come when it isn’t.”
Prices are high in large part because
one-off installations require one-of-a-
kind parts that would be far cheaper if
produced in bulk.
EV West is producing common parts
in conversion kits for frequently electri-
fied cars like Beetles. A “turnkey” kit,
including motor, controller, batteries
and regenerative brakes, starts at
$17,000. Labor on installation usually
runs about $15,000, Mr. Bream said.
“That’s where it is going,” said Mike
Spagnola, vice president for product
development at the Specialty Equip-
ment Market Association, which repre-
sents aftermarket parts manufacturers.
“People are working on fitment kits.”
Right now, most of the design effort
is going into kits that adapt drivetrains
from wrecked Teslas for gas cars. “It’s
still in its infancy, but in the next couple
of years I think you are going to really
see it take off,” Mr. Spagnola said.
ZELECTRIC
Development of cheaper parts may
be hastened by the E.V. world’s collegi-
ality. Most of the significant players
have worked on projects together.
“In our little micro-niche, there is
pretty good communication between
the players,” said Jonathan Ward,
owner of Icon, a premium retro-modder
in Los Angeles. When he sought to
convert a 1949 Mercury to electric, “I
was very pleasantly surprised by how
open the E.V. community has been.”
That cooperation didn’t solve a thorn-
ier problem facing conversion shops.
Motors, controllers and batteries im-
prove faster than they can install them.
Mr. Ward’s ’49 Mercury had to be re-
done repeatedly over a three-year
period.
“Before I could get it out the door,” he
said, “key suppliers has second ver-
sions, third versions, with significant
improvements.”
In fact, the Mercury still isn’t in the
owner’s garage. “The software,” Mr.
Ward said, “is being upgraded once
again.”

Google Moves to Fight Fraudulent Advertising by Requiring Proof of Identity

By TIFFANY HSU
and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI
In an effort to fight off fraudulent
or misleading online ads, Google
will require that all advertisers
across its sprawling network
prove who they are and where
they operate, the company said in
a blog post on Thursday.
The names of the companies or
people behind ads, as well as their
countries of origin, will begin ap-
pearing on Google ads this sum-
mer, starting with several thou-
sand advertisers a month in the
United States before expanding
worldwide. The measure, which
could take years to implement, is
designed as a defense against
businesses and individuals who
misrepresent themselves in paid
online promotions, Google said.
The move comes as Google
tries to tamp down misinforma-
tion and scams related to the coro-
navirus pandemic. It expands a
2018 verification policy focused on
political advertisers serving elec-
tion ads.
Broadening the policy will “help
support the health of the digital
advertising ecosystem by detect-
ing bad actors and limiting their
attempts to misrepresent them-
selves,” wrote John Canfield, who
handles ad integrity for Google, in
the blog post.
In the past, Google has cited
predatory behavior by companies
that trumpet payday loans, bail-
bonds services and third-party
tech support, often banning ads
outright. In September, Google
said that it had taken down more
than 3.2 billion ads that violated
its advertising policies in a year, or
more than 100 bad ads per second.
Under the new policy, Google
will suspend the accounts of ad-
vertisers that do not provide proof
of identity, including W9 forms,
passports and other personal
identification and business incor-
poration files. Previously, Google
had requested basic information,
like names, but did not require
documentation.
“Who doesn’t want an internet that is more truthful,” said one ad executive.
“Who doesn’t want an internet
that is more truthful, especially
with the rise of fake news, fake
businesses and fake face masks?”
said Douglas Rozen, the chief me-
dia officer at the digital ad agency
360i. “The inevitability of this
JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
makes sense in today’s envi-
ronment.”
As regulators try to beat back
unsupported claims about coro-
navirus treatments, and as troll
farms prepare to influence the
2020 election, tech companies are
beefing up their defenses. This
month Reddit updated its political
advertising policy to require ad-
vertisers to provide proof of iden-
tity to its sales team.
Google intensified efforts to
clean up ads after it was discov-
ered that websites spreading false
information about the 2016 presi-
dential election were making
money by selling ads through the
company’s advertising networks.
In late 2016, Google kicked off
hundreds of publishers from its
AdSense advertising system. Two
years later, it required political ad-
vertisers to verify their identities
before allowing them to buy cam-
paign ads. The move came after
Google’s disclosure to Congress
that it had accepted nearly $5,000
in advertising during the election
cycle from the Internet Research
Agency, a Russian company ac-
cused of meddling in the race.
More recently, Google has been
playing cat-and-mouse with ad-
vertisers trying to circumvent its
ban on ads that profit from short-
ages caused by the pandemic.
Even as Google said it was catch-
ing millions of problematic virus-
related ads a day, its networks still
failed to rein in many others.
“There’s a lot of money in
Google ads; it’s easy for someone
to start an advertising account
and start dumping money into
their system,” said Jared Moré, a
digital marketing consultant.
Mr. Moré, who has worked with
health care companies for nearly
20 years, said he has seen plenty
of sketchy behavior, especially in-
volving search results and ads for
drug and alcohol treatment cen-
ters. In 2018, Google began requir-
ing advertisers in that category to
be certified as addiction services
providers.
Expanding the verification
process is a necessary step, he
said.
“It shouldn’t be a hassle for 99
percent of advertisers,” he said.
“It will only be difficult for people
who are maybe doing something
unscrupulous.”
SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 B9
N

Live From Everywhere

ALLEN KEE/ESPN IMAGES, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

The N.F.L. draft board at the ESPN studio in Bristol, Conn. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the event took place online, with Commissioner Roger Goodell,
team officials, players and commentators in isolated locations in place of the traditional red-carpet arrivals and in-person selections in front of an audience.

A Pivotal Day,
For Better Elite, With a Desire
To Keep Improving
Or Worse
Draft day holds the promise
of dreams fulfilled. It can also
be the beginning of the end.
Chase Young, a
By TOBY GERHART defensive end from
I stared at the TV screen in disbelief.
Ohio State, led the
My replacement had just been chosen. I F.B.S. with 16½
could hear it in the echo of these words: sacks last season.
“With the 36th pick of the 2015 N.F.L. ‘I definitely think
draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars select T. J.
Yeldon, running back from
I’m the best player
ESSAY Alabama.” in the draft. I think
Just a year earlier, the
Jaguars had signed me as their
I showed it on
starting running back. After one season, my tape.’
which was derailed by a right-foot injury
CHASE YOUNG, who was
that lingered through the year, Jack-
sonville was moving away from what I taken by the Redskins on
had been told about being “the guy.” Thursday with the No. 2 pick
Lying in bed that night, I cried for the
first time in years.
I fought for my job as the Jaguars’
marquee runner the following season, but
that draft day five years ago began the
end of my 22-year football career.
I’ve been thinking about that day not
just because the N.F.L. draft is here
again, but because many thousands of
athletes have had their own dreams
spoiled this year — by the coronavirus
PAUL SANCYA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
pandemic. Perhaps the lessons I have
learned can help them.
I was welcomed into the world with a
notice in The Press-Enterprise of River- By TYLER KEPNER The answer soon became obvious. Young ment Young saw in himself, the more he
side, Calif., written by a sportswriter who The last time he changed teams, from De- — a 6-foot-5, 264-pound junior defensive end bought in, shedding his high school moves
knew my parents as outstanding athletes. Matha Catholic in Hyattsville, Md., to Ohio — led the F.B.S. in sacks with 16½ last season for the more intricate, sophisticated ap-
The item was addressed to the coach of State, Chase Young made an indelible im- and might be the best overall player in the proaches that would make him a force at
my future high school: pression on his recruiter. N.F.L. draft. Just ask him. Ohio State.
“Gary Campbell: there’s a prospect “We talked on the phone probably more “I definitely think I’m the best player in That ability to adapt and learn, Johnson
for the Cougars who just moved into the than anyone I’ve ever recruited,” said Larry the draft,” Young said at the N.F.L. scouting said, should make Young a high-impact
area. . . . Toby should be ready to join the Johnson Sr., the Buckeyes’ defensive line combine. “I think I showed it on my tape.” player immediately in the N.F.L.
Cougars in 2002. Hope you’re still coach- and associate head coach. “Sometimes at 10 Young studied those tapes with Johnson, “We talked yesterday about a team that
ing then.” at night he would text me, ‘If you’re up, can I who challenged himself to find flaws in had called him, and just listening to him
I ended up playing for Coach Camp- call you?’ ” Young’s technique. He would break down talk, you can tell the maturity’s really at a
bell and earning a scholarship to play at They talked about the intricacies of de- film in slow motion, scrutinizing Young’s high level,” Johnson said recently. “He gets
Stanford, where I led the nation in rush- fense, Johnson’s coaching style and players hand placement, the drive of his inside foot it, he understands it, and he understands
ing yards and touchdowns and was the he had helped become stars, like Tamba Hali toward the quarterback, the positioning of coaching, which is really cool. I said, ‘I’m
runner-up for the 2009 Heisman Trophy and the Bosa brothers, Nick and Joey. Young his chest relative to his thigh as he lined up. proud of you.’ He said, ‘I love you, man,’ and
in the closest vote in the trophy’s history. wanted to know anything he could to become If Johnson could tighten up Young just an I said, ‘I love you back.’ He’s so genuine. He
The Minnesota Vikings picked me in a special player. “Coach,” he would ask, “do inch or two, here or there, he could help a star can’t thank me enough, but he doesn’t real-
the second round of the 2010 N.F.L. draft, you think I have it?” player become elite. And the more improve- ize I thank him just as much.”
allowing me to realize all I had dreamed
about as a kid. I ran onto the field in front
Continued on Page B12 More N.F.L. draft coverage, Pages B10-12.
B10 0 N
Top Picks
1. Joe Burrow Bengals
Quarterback, Louisiana State
For the first time since 2003,
when it took Carson Palmer,
Cincinnati chose a quarter-
back to begin the draft.
2. Chase Young Redskins
Defensive end, Ohio State
In Columbus, Young learned
from the renowned defensive
line coach Larry Johnson Sr.
3. Jeff Okudah Lions
Cornerback, Ohio State
Okudah projects as a marvel-
ous fit with Detroit for a simple
reason: What team wouldn’t
want a shutdown cornerback?
4. Andrew Thomas Giants
Offensive tackle, Georgia
Started 13 games at left
tackle and was a first-team
all-American this season.
5. Tua Tagovailoa Dolphins
Quarterback, Alabama
Obviously, the Dolphins are
comfortable with his health.
6. Justin Herbert Chargers
Quarterback, Oregon
His size and arm strength are
consistent with a prototypical
N.F.L. quarterback.
7. Derrick Brown Panthers
Defensive tackle, Auburn
Panthers Coach Matt Rhule
wanted the best defensive
lineman in the Southeastern
Conference, if not the country.
8. Isaiah Simmons Cardinals
Linebacker, Clemson
Listed at 6-foot-4 and 238
pounds, he played at least
100 snaps at five positions.
9. C.J. Henderson Jaguars
Cornerback, Florida
Henderson has the speed and
anticipation to erase receivers
all over the field.
10. Jedrick Wills Jr. Browns
Offensive tackle, Alabama
Cleveland finally filled the left
tackle spot that Joe Thomas
vacated when he retired three
years ago.
11. Mekhi Becton Jets
Offensive tackle, Louisville
The Jets allowed 52 sacks last
season, the fourth-most in the
N.F.L.
12. Henry Ruggs III Raiders
Wide receiver, Alabama
Ruggs ran a 4.27-second
40-yard dash at the combine,
the fastest of any position.
13. Tristan Wirfs Buccaneers
Offensive tackle, Iowa
Every move the Bucs make
revolves around a quarterback
who turns 43 in August.
14. Javon Kinlaw 49ers
Defensive tackle, South Carolina
Kinlaw is an outstanding pass
rusher with long arms.
15. Jerry Jeudy Broncos
Wide receiver, Alabama
Jeudy grew up in South Florida
playing with Lamar Jackson,
who taught him how to juke.
For more draft coverage, visit
nytimes.com/sports.
Quotable
Nobody’s allowed
to make fun of me
tonight none of the
barbershops are
open
@Joe_Burrow10 (Joe
Burrow), about five
hours before being
drafted by the Bengals.
30 minutes in,
one pick down.
This is Andy Reid
clock management.
(Can I still make
that joke post Super
Bowl?)
@linzsports (Lindsay
Gibbs), on the pace of the
N.F.L. draft show.
Rich Paul has been
an NFL agent for
ten minutes. Two
of his clients
(Young, Okudah)
went second and
third in the draft
@joevardon
THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
N.F.L. Draft
A Tireless Leader
(In Football, Too)
By BEN SHPIGEL
From his size to his post-football aspira-
tions, there is nothing remotely tiny about
Derrick Brown — nicknamed Baby Barack
at Auburn. When he wasn’t thwarting
triple-teams or mauling quarterbacks as
one of the nation’s best defensive linemen,
Brown devoted himself to helping others,
on campus and in the community.
He presided over the committee that rep-
resents student-athletes at Auburn, con-
veying their feedback in regular meetings
with university administrators and athletic
officials. As a member of the Southeastern
Conference’s Student-Athlete Leadership
Council, Brown fought for a bump in enter-
tainment money given to students hosting
football recruits, up to $75 from $40. He built
homes on mission trips to the Dominican
Republic, worked at toy drives and food
banks, and visited a school near Auburn
reeling from tornado damage.
“There’s stuff that he’d do that he never
told us about,” his father, James, said, “and
we’d have to find out about it on Twitter.”
James Brown — a deputy sheriff in Gwin-
nett County, Ga. — and his wife, Martha, a
manager at a Walmart, urged their three
children not to embrace mediocrity and in-
stilled a commitment to service. On Satur-
days, they picked up trash outside the ele-
mentary school. On Sundays, after church,
they helped take out the garbage there.
They volunteered around their county and
donated goods to the Salvation Army.
As Derrick Brown began to draw interest
from dozens of major programs, he con-
veyed to coaches that he was not attending MICHAEL CONROY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
college only to play football. Instead of de-
claring early for the draft, Brown — who ‘He has no limitations. he didn’t complete his degree in marketing?
“I want to break the stereotype that foot-
He intends to pursue a career in market-
ing or law enforcement, perhaps in the
probably would have been chosen in the
first round a year ago — spurned the riches Football is what he does. ball players are dumb and all this stuff,” he F.B.I., though his position coach at Auburn,
of the N.F.L. and returned for his senior sea- It’s not who he is.’ said in a telephone interview. “I’m one of the
people that, if you sit down with me and you
Rodney Garner, believes he should run for
public office. Eventually.
son, graduating in December. He has a 16-
month-old son, Kai, and what kind of exam- RODNEY GARNER, defensive line coach take that approach, I’m really going to “He has no limitations,” Garner said.
ple would he be setting, Brown reasoned, if at Auburn, on Derrick Brown, above, make you change your mind.” “Football is what he does. It’s not who he is.”
who went to the Panthers at No. 7
Grateful for the Past, evolving from a pass-rush specialist his
first two seasons into an every-down terror
in 2019, when he had 11½ sacks and 14 tack-
And Looking Ahead les for a loss. Seven of those sacks came in
his final four games.
By BEN SHPIGEL “Whichever team drafts him is getting
Growing up, A.J. Epenesa and his two him at the right time,” Kelvin Bell, the Iowa
oldest siblings were always bigger than defensive line coach, said in an interview,
their teammates, and their father, Eppy, “because the arrow is continuing to go up.”
made sure they worked harder, too. On
summer days, they would run a mile to and
from a bridge — stopping there to do core ‘Whichever team drafts him is
workouts — scale hills at a local park, and
flip tires and perform ladder drills behind getting him at the right time.’
their home in Glen Carbon, Ill., outside St. KELVIN BELL, Iowa’s defensive line coach,
Louis.
on A.J. Epenesa, left
Some of Epenesa’s friends soon joined in.
So did friends of his brother Eric. Three
would turn into 30, or more. Eppy — who
played on the defensive line at Iowa, as A.J.
would later — trained them all.
Epenesa considers it a responsibility —
Offering his time, backyard and exper-
and a privilege — to serve as a role model
tise, Eppy asked for nothing in return. He
worked to help them all become better ath- for younger Polynesian athletes, just as the
letes and, by instilling the respect-your-eld- DAVID BANKS/ASSOCIATED PRESS longtime N.F.L. stars Junior Seau and Troy
er values of his Samoan heritage, tried to Polamalu did for him. He has not visited Sa-
make them better people, too. grace before devouring plates of short ribs After leaving American Samoa in the moa since middle school — he was unable to
“We just bring people in and make them and pork steaks. early 1990s to play football at Iowa Wesley- accompany his family members last sum-
feel welcome,” Epenesa said. “It’s some- The Epenesa home would buzz with ener- an, Eppy met Stephanie, a volleyball player. mer, when they watched the players on the
Later he walked onto the team at Iowa, tak- football team at Eppy’s high school practice
thing we enjoy doing.” gy and activity at all hours. All four children
The Epenesa family has six members, excelled in sports, much as their father and ing a student loan to pay for his fall semes- with tattered equipment. But he is looking
but that number swells to 150 on Friday their mother, Stephanie, had. Samantha, the ter before earning a scholarship. forward to someday returning the support
nights during high school football season, oldest, played volleyball at Purdue; Eric For Epenesa, that story of sacrifice and he has received from Samoa.
when the family’s backyard hosts potluck plans to walk on as a football player at Iowa; success resonated throughout his child- “Whenever I have the chance to go back,”
dinners after home games. Teammates, and Iose, an eighth-grader, could wind up hood. Immersed in Hawkeyes tradition Epenesa said, “I definitely want to give
friends and their parents hold hands to say being the best of them all. from an early age, Epenesa thrived at Iowa, back as well.”
When a Tiger Becomes a Bengal
NFL, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Louisiana State quarterback Joe Burrow with his parents, Jim and Robin, at their Ohio home after Burrow was selected first over all by the Bengals on Thursday in the N.F.L. draft.

Prepared to Protect,
On the Field and Off
By BILLY WITZ
As a left tackle, Austin Jackson plays the
role of protectorate — taking care of a pre-
cious commodity, a quarterback’s blind
side. It’s a role for which the 20-year-old
from the University of Southern California
has long been prepared.
For as long as he can remember, Jackson
has looked after his sister Autumn, who is
two years younger and was born with Dia-
mond-Blackfan anemia, a rare disorder that
left her needing blood transfusions every
three weeks and made her increasingly sus-
ceptible to diseases like leukemia.
Last year, doctors suggested a lifeline: a
bone-marrow transplant, which was not
without risk, but if successful could allow
Autumn to live a nearly normal life.
Her brother was found to be a match, so
last July — less than a month before train-
ing camp — Jackson had more than a liter of
bone marrow withdrawn from his lower
back. The next day, his sister, who had un-
dergone chemotherapy to kill off her bone
marrow, received a transfusion.
“The first thing I did was thank God for
giving Autumn this opportunity,” said Jack-
son, who started in U.S.C.’s opener and was
chosen for the Pac-12’s first team despite
not regaining his full strength until October.
The change to his training regimen last
year, when he worked out alone in his home-
town, Phoenix, so he would not contract an
infection, has left him well equipped to han-
dle the disruption caused by the pandemic.
Jackson was shopping for a new suit and
perusing Las Vegas hotel suites when the
N.F.L. announced the draft would be held
remotely. At 6-foot-5, 322 pounds, he is
among the better prospects in what draft
analysts call a deep pool of left tackles.
With his pro day workout at U.S.C. scut-
tled, his focus shifted away from combine-
like drills to getting ready for the season.
His day starts with yoga, then he goes to his
old high school to lift weights and run. He
also hikes Squaw Peak and Lookout Moun-
tain, where the reward for the climb is an
expansive view of the Phoenix area.
Most of his preparation for the season is
now done in solitude.
“You’re more careful about touching
things and being around people,” he said.
“It’s different, but it’s for a good cause.”
That cause includes Autumn, who is re-
covering well — “in a couple months, she
should be clear,” Jackson said — but is im-
munocompromised, which puts her at risk.
Jackson said he considers where they
were a year ago, and how if his sister were
undergoing the transplant now she’d be iso-
lated. Instead, with plans to attend college,
she is preparing to embark on a new chap-
ter in the fall — not unlike her brother.
“The timing,” he said, “was perfect.”
Where Can He Play?
Where Can’t He Play?
By BEN SHPIGEL
Before he would play five positions on
Clemson’s defense — sometimes in the
same game, always to devastating effect —
Isaiah Simmons had none. Many of the pro-
grams recruiting him didn’t know where, or
how, he would fit. Even Clemson envisioned
him only as a safety.
“You never guess a guy’s going to turn
into a 240-pound monster,” Brent Venables,
Clemson’s defensive coordinator, said in an
interview. “Didn’t necessarily see that.”
The only thing harder than projecting
Simmons’s evolution into the N.F.L. draft’s
best all-around defensive prospect, per-
haps, has been discerning his whereabouts
before a snap.
Simmons, who stacked a 4.39-second 40-
yard dash at the N.F.L.’s scouting combine
with a 39-inch vertical jump and an 11-foot
broad jump, aligned at slot cornerback,
edge rusher, linebacker and both safety
spots last season at Clemson. He played at
least 100 snaps at each of those five posi-
tions, according to Pro Football Focus, and
finished with 16.5 tackles for a loss, eight
sacks, eight pass deflections and three in-
terceptions.
“In a league that doesn’t have a lot of mar-
gin for error when it comes to roster man-
agement,” Venables said, “I think you im-
mediately get more than one person.”
In that, the 6-foot-4 Simmons counterbal-
ances the raft of hybridized offensive play-
ers permeating the N.F.L. He has the build,
speed and length to counter players like San
Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle and
Carolina Panthers running back Christian
McCaffrey, who often cause mismatches for
defenses. Modern defenses prioritize pres-
suring the quarterback and stopping the
pass, and Simmons can do both.
For Venables, one of Simmons’s many
highlights lingers longest. On fourth-and-3
from Clemson’s 34-yard line, in the second
THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
MICHAEL CONROY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
‘The first thing
I did was thank
God for giving
Autumn this
opportunity.’
AUSTIN JACKSON,
left tackle for U.S.C.,
who was able to donate
bone marrow to his sister.
The Dolphins drafted him
with the No. 18 selection.
‘You never guess a guy’s going to turn into a
240-pound monster. Didn’t necessarily see that.’
BRENT VENABLES, Clemson’s defensive coordinator, on the
evolution of Isaiah Simmons, above, who played five positions
in college and was drafted by the Cardinals with the No. 8 pick
quarter of the Tigers’ College Football Play-
off semifinal victory two seasons ago
against Notre Dame, Simmons lined up in
man coverage opposite receiver Miles
Boykin, who ran a fade up the right hash.
Simmons recovered quickly after a brief
stumble off the line, shadowed Boykin for
about 15 yards and, instead of clumsily run-
ning into him, reached around him to deflect
the ball with his left hand.
It was, indeed, an excellent play — made
by a former safety playing cornerback who
last season was selected as college foot-
ball’s best linebacker. Where he plays in the
N.F.L. is intriguing — linebacker, most
likely — but, in the end, irrelevant. For
when Simmons was asked his position at
the combine, he offered but one word: de-
fense.
N.F.L. Draft
PAUL SANCYA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Receivers, Beware: speed, acceleration, instincts, inquisitive-
ness and competitiveness. He has endured
He’s Like Darius Slay a lot already, losing his mother, Marie, to
lymphoma just six days after arriving on
By TYLER KEPNER campus as an early enrollee in January
2017. In an article this year in The Players’
As he established himself at Ohio State as
Tribune, Okudah said he welcomed the
the best cornerback in his draft class, Jeff
chance to tell N.F.L. teams about her.
Okudah found a role model in Darius Slay. “I’ll tell them that we never had the most
In each of the last three seasons, Slay
money, in terms of our financial situation,”
earned a Pro Bowl selection with the De-
he said. “And that we didn’t have the most
troit Lions. The two are mutual admirers
and have been in touch by phone and text.
“He does a lot of techniques that I use,
‘Corners usually aren’t
moving my feet good, staying on top, mak- as big as he is.’
ing plays on deep balls,” Slay told The De-
JEFF HAFLEY, Boston College coach,
troit Free Press in January. “You can tell he
takes the deep ball away easily, but with him on Jeff Okudah, above, who went to
the Lions with the No. 3 pick
being so quick and so long and aggressive,
he can take away a lot of other stuff.”
At 6 feet 1 and 205 pounds, Okudah is a bit
time, in terms of our years we got to spend
bigger than Slay, who was traded to the
together. But we had the most love — that’s
Philadelphia Eagles last month. The team for sure.”
that took Okudah on Thursday? The Lions. At Ohio State last season, Okudah said,
“You just see the physical stature when Hafley was both a friend and an inspiration.
he walks in a room,” said Boston College’s Hafley coached in the N.F.L. for seven
head coach, Jeff Hafley, who was a co-defen- years, and he recognizes traits in Okudah
sive coordinator and cornerbacks coach for that he saw in the top pro defensive backs.
Ohio State during Okudah’s time there. “What separates the Pro Bowlers I’ve
“Corners usually aren’t as big as he is. Usu- been around — Ronde Barber, Darrelle Re-
ally guys that are as tall and broad and vis, Richard Sherman and even Donte Whit-
strong, they don’t play the position. And in ner, those elite guys — their mind-set’s dif-
the N.F.L. game right now, that’s what all ferent,” Hafley said. “They have a different
the wideouts look like, so you’re trying to level of competing and working and they’re
find a guy to match up with them.” driven to the point where nothing’s going to
Okudah has it all, Hafley said: size, stop them. And Jeff’s got that.”
Resembling Mahomes
In Talent and Style
By BEN SHPIGEL
The quarterback who threw the most in-
terceptions in Division I in 2019 will play in
the N.F.L. next season. Not only that, he will
almost certainly be drafted in the first
round, and it’s even possible that a team will
trade up to select him.
For his new team, the fact that Jordan
Love threw 17 interceptions at Utah State
after a revelatory redshirt sophomore sea-
son, when he threw just six — while averag-
ing 8.6 yards per attempt — will not matter
as much as the context behind them.
Though he will most likely be the fourth
quarterback selected this year, Love is the
most tantalizing prospect since Patrick Ma-
RICHARD SHIRO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
homes, who, despite obvious bountiful
physical ability, had to quell the perception
that playing in an Air Raid offense at Texas
Tech would hinder him in the N.F.L. (Spoiler
alert: It hasn’t.)
From a strictly stylistic standpoint, Love,
at 6-foot-4 and 224 pounds, resembles Ma-
homes, too. His arm strength, coupled with
a flair for extending plays, passing on the
run and throwing from crazy angles,
produced a string of absurd highlights. His
film — from last season, especially — also
contains instances of lapsed mechanics,
forced throws and shaky field vision.
Love followed a trajectory similar to that
of Josh Allen, another former Mountain
West quarterback with a powerful arm,
whom the Buffalo Bills drafted No. 7 over all
two years ago. Like Allen, Love excelled as
a sophomore, when he was surrounded by
strong personnel, then backslid when the
quality around him diminished. Besides
playing with nine new offensive starters
last season, Love also acclimated to a new
coaching staff and offense.
“Some of it was just the result of the de-
sire to make plays and the desire to find
ways to score,” Mike Sanford, who was Utah
State’s offensive coordinator last season,
0N B11
Ups and Downs
JOE BURROW,
BENGALS QUARTERBACK
No matter how well
Burrow plays, the Bengals, in
all likelihood, won’t be making
the playoffs this season. But
the team probably won’t be
2-14 as it was in 2019, and for
the first time in a long time, it
will be exciting, and interest-
ing, again.
EXPECTATIONS,
DOLPHINS
Miami made Tua Tago-
vailoa — the Alabama quarter-
back who led the Crimson Tide
to a 2017 national champi-
onship season but whose ju-
nior year in 2019 ended with a
dislocated hip in November —
the No. 5 overall pick. The
Dolphins clearly view Tagov-
ailoa as their next franchise
quarterback, and he is likely to
face more pressure than any
Miami rookie quarterback
since Dan Marino was drafted
in 1983. Given that Tagovailoa
still needs rehab after his
injury, the Dolphins will be
best advised to play the long
game with him and not expect
an immediate second coming
of Marino, who led the team to
the Super Bowl in his second
season.
DRAFT PACE,
N.F.L.
The first hour of the
telecast featured a poignant
acknowledgment of the impact
of the coronavirus on sports,
and Commissioner Roger
Goodell, broadcasting from his
basement, inviting a round of
socially distanced booing, but
few actual draft picks. Only
five were made in the first 60
minutes, which meant that the
early pace was for a six-hour
first around.
DANIEL JONES,
GIANTS
Without his lifting a
finger, the second-year quar-
terback’s season prospects
improved exponentially on
Thursday night. The Giants
drafted Georgia’s Andrew
Thomas, an all-American at
offensive tackle in 2019 who
also dominated at guard in his
Bulldog career. Thomas will be
expected to enhance, if not
anchor, the Giants’ offensive
line, which allowed 43 sacks
and 119 quarterback hits in
2019.
VASHA HUNT/USA TODAY SPORTS, VIA REUTERS
‘We’re going to be sitting
here in three or four years
saying, “How did players
X, Y and Z get drafted
ahead of Jordan Love?”’
JIM NAGY, Senior Bowl’s executive director
said in a telephone interview. “Jordan put
the onus on himself and, quite frankly at
times, needed to create.”
Selecting the wrong quarterback can
doom an organization, spawning other poor
decisions and consigning it to a perpetual
rebuild. But for a young quarterback to de-
velop and succeed, a strong — and stable —
infrastructure is critical, and Jim Nagy, the
18-year N.F.L. scout who is now the execu-
tive director of the Senior Bowl, said it was
even more imperative for Love.
Nagy believes that Love has the potential
to develop into the best quarterback taken
this year but that, ideally, he will sit for a
season.
“In hindsight, we’re all saying, ‘How the
heck did Patrick Mahomes last to 12?’ ”
Nagy said, referring to the pick Kansas City
used to draft him. “If Jordan gets to the
right situation and everything clicks for
him, we’re going to be sitting here in three
or four years saying, ‘How did players X, Y
and Z get drafted ahead of Jordan Love?’ ”
B12 0 N
The Great Mystery:
Is Tua Healthy?
By DANIELLE ALLENTUCK
Once projected as a top pick in the N.F.L.
draft, Tua Tagovailoa ultimately became
one of its biggest mysteries.
A dynamic left-hander who won two na-
tional titles as Alabama’s quarterback,
Tagovailoa has been recovering from a hip
dislocation sustained in a November game.
He was cleared to begin football activities in
March, but teams were unable to scout him
in person because of travel restrictions re-
lated to the coronavirus pandemic.
Although this had the potential to be det-
rimental to Tagovailoa, he went to the Mi-
ami Dolphins with the No. 5 pick on Thurs-
day night.
During his time at Alabama, he also frac-
tured his left index finger, sprained his right
knee and hurt both ankles, possibly leading
to perceptions that he would always be at
risk of injury.
“Durability is as big as ability,” Michael
Lombardi, a former general manager for
the Cleveland Browns, said. “When you
have a history of injury, I think people are
concerned. You can’t overlook it.”
Tagovailoa moved to Nashville in Janu-
ary and started training with Trent Dilfer, a
former N.F.L. quarterback who now
coaches a high school team.
Dilfer said their approach borrowed a
A Pivotal Day of New Beginnings, or of the Beginning of the End
From First Sports Page
of tens of thousands of fans, with millions
more watching at home. I took the field as
the teammate of my favorite player from
childhood, Brett Favre. I was in the NCAA
Football and Madden NFL video games
and was drafted in fantasy leagues. I even
celebrated with a few touchdown dances
of my own — a two-handed kiss to the fans
followed by a double-armed biceps flex.
There was immense pressure, but I
thrived. True, I often could not lift my
arms high enough to hug my mom and my
wife after games. I watched my mistakes
and shortcomings shared daily by the
news media and received threats from
fans online. But the physical and mental
pain were worth it. I got paid to play a
game I loved. I was one in a million.
“Not for Long” is an appropriate nick-
name for the N.F.L. The average career for
a player lasts 3.3 years. At the league’s
rookie symposium, we were told: “There
are only two guarantees in the N.F.L. You
will be injured, and you will be released
before you’re ready to be done playing.”
I was a testament to both. I had multiple
operations, broke several bones and tore
various ligaments throughout my six-year
N.F.L. career. I managed a core injury
poorly in 2015, thinking that playing
through it would help my career more
than surgery and rest. After the Jaguars
released me in 2016, I believed I could still
play. But 32 general managers disagreed.
Suddenly I was no longer one in a million.
I was one of a million, trying to find a new
identity.
Toby Gerhart was drafted 51st over all by
the Minnesota Vikings in the second round
of the 2010 N.F.L. draft. He played six pro-
fessional seasons and is graduating in June
from the Stanford Graduate School of
Business.
THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
N.F.L. Draft
‘He could go
play a game
tomorrow
without
question.
He wouldn’t
even flinch.’
TRENT DILFER, NFL, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
former quarterback,
on Tua Tagovailoa, left,
who was taken by the
Giants and Jets Beef Up Their Offensive Lines
Dolphins with the By DANIELLE ALLENTUCK and for Saquon as well.”
No. 5 selection Making protection for quarterback Dan- Gettleman has emphasized the impor-
iel Jones a priority, the Giants on Thursday tance of acquiring big linemen, whom he
selected Andrew Thomas, a Georgia offen- likes to call “hog mollies,” and this year’s
sive tackle, at fourth over all in the N.F.L. draft is considered rich in offensive tackles,
draft. with at least five taken in the first round.
Then the Jets, aiming to add support for Becton was the third to be picked.
their young quarterback, Sam Darnold, The Giants ended 2019 with a 4-12 record,
chose Mekhi Becton, an offensive tackle
from the University of Louisville, at 11th
over all. ‘He’s young, like all these guys,
Thomas, 21, played three college seasons,
starting every game at right tackle during but we feel very strongly that
his first year, when he was named a fresh- he is ready and capable.’
man all-American. Thomas switched to left
tackle his sophomore year and was named DAVE GETTLEMAN,
to the all-Southeastern Conference team. the Giants’ general manager,
He started 13 games last year and was who drafted Andrew Thomas,
named a first-team all-American. second from right above, at No. 4
“We feel that he is ready to make this
jump,” Dave Gettleman, who is headed into
his third season as the Giants’ general man- then fired Coach Pat Shurmur and replaced
ager, said after making the pick. “He’s him with Joe Judge, who had no head coach-
young, like all these guys, but we feel very ing experience. The team’s next pick will be
JASEN VINLOVE/USA TODAY SPORTS, VIA REUTERS
strongly that he is ready and capable.” No. 36, in the second round.
Thomas is from Lithonia, Ga., and has a
philosophy from the movie “Rocky IV”:
Like Rocky, who traveled to Ukraine to train
In addition to seeking protection for
Jones, who took over for Eli Manning and passion for music. He grew up playing the
without telling anyone, Tagovailoa was to started 12 games after being picked sixth drums and taught himself piano in college.
keep his plan a secret. The goal, Dilfer said, over all in last year’s draft, the Giants Becton started 33 games in three seasons
was to ensure that Tagovailoa could focus needed to bolster the line to clear space for at Louisville and can play left or right
solely on getting back into shape. running back Saquon Barkley, who was se- tackle. He is 6-foot-7 and 364 pounds, and
After lying low for January and February, lected second over all in the 2018 draft. The Jets General Manager Joe Douglas said
Tagovailoa began making appearances on Giants finished in the bottom third of the that the team had noticed Becton as an un-
ESPN to talk about his recovery and his league in offensive yards per game (338.5, derclassman because of his size. He added
draft preparation. 23rd place). Thomas, who is 6-foot-5 and that Becton’s footwork, heavy hands and
“If I had to go out there and perform the 320 pounds, excels at pass protection and is ability to move people off the ball made him
same way I did my sophomore year and my very athletic in the open field, which Gettle- a promising player for a team that allowed
junior year, being 100 percent healthy, I feel man said made him a key target for the Gi- 52 sacks last season, the fourth most in the
like I’d be able to go out there and do that,” ants. N.F.L.
he told ESPN. “Once you draft a quarterback, you get “He is a tough guy to get around playing
guys in front of them that can keep them up- that tackle spot,” Coach Adam Gase said of
He also used videos and social media to
right,” Gettleman said. “This was an impor- Becton. “He brings an edge to us. He can
try to allay concerns teams might have. Af-
tant piece for us in Daniel’s development, add some nasty to the offensive line.”
ter his pro scouting day on the Alabama
campus was canceled because of the pan-
demic, Tagovailoa set up an alternative ver-
sion at a private facility. To comply with gov-
ernment regulations, fewer than 10 people
attended. Footage from his one-hour work-
out was sent to N.F.L. teams, and parts of it
were later posted online.
“He could go play a game tomorrow with-
out question,” Dilfer said. “He wouldn’t
even flinch.”
Tagovailoa’s agent and doctors have also
been vocal on his behalf, telling the news
media that he will be fine by the time train-
ing camp starts — with the same strong, ac-
curate arm that made him the F.B.S. leader
in quarterback rating last season — and
that he is expected to make a full recovery.
I have always considered myself more
than a football player. That belief played a
huge part in my decision to commit to
Stanford and to graduate with a degree in
management science and engineering
before going pro. I had set myself up for a
future beyond football. Yet faced with the
end of my playing days, I struggled.
I did not jump into a career right away,
because I was lost. Though I did not define
myself through football, confronting the
reality of life without it was scary and
confusing. I entered business school in
2018, hoping for clarity.
What would excite me as football once
did? Why do potential employers see me
as no one other than a football player? My
emails are quickly answered, and meet-
ings are set up, but questions such as
“What do you bench press?” and “Who hit
you the hardest?” dominate the conversa-
tion. I was once one of the best in the Toby Gerhart at the col-
world at my job. Now I’m seen as having lege football awards in
no relevant work experience — where 2009. The Heisman vot-
others have worked for a decade and can ing that year was the clos-
walk the walk and talk the talk.
est in the trophy’s history.
In March, the N.C.A.A. abruptly can-
celed all championships and all spring
collegiate sports because of the coro-
navirus, effectively spoiling college sen-
iors’ final season of competition. And this
week, when the N.F.L. draft will take place
not on a stage in Las Vegas, as originally
planned, but from a studio, a mere 255
athletes will hear their names called and DOUG BENC/GETTY IMAGES
get the chance to live their dreams. The
thousands who go undrafted, along with Our whole lives we were taught never to next phase of their lives.
the tens of thousands of college seniors show fear, weakness or pain, yet when You’re already a great competitor. Now
whose seasons were ruined, will join me confronted with the end of our athletic you’re competing in a new way. Compete
searching for new meaning and employ- careers we are afraid, uncertain, lost. for the next opportunity and compete for
ment. These feelings are natural and common. fun. Above all else, remain confident.
Compared with most, I was fortunate. I Embrace them. Cry. Ask for help. Reach Always remember that athletic competi-
left collegiate sports on my own terms and out to former teammates, classmates and tion taught us invaluable lessons and
played professionally. Nevertheless, the mentors, and educate yourself about their instilled qualities translatable to every
abrupt ending resonates. In my case it careers and future opportunities. facet of life. Discipline and perseverance
was because of injuries; for current ath- My reflection showed me that I want to through hardship are ingrained from a
letes it is the coronavirus. help athletes pivot and transition into the lifetime in sport.

S C O R E B OA R D
TRANSACTIONS
FOOTBALL
N.F.L.
ARIZONA CARDINALS — Signed K Zane
Gonzalez to a one-year qualifying offer.
JETS — Re-signed T Leo Koloamatangi,
K Sam Ficken and LB's B.J. Bello and
Frankie Luvu.
HOCKEY
Ontario Hockey League
HAMILTON BULLDOGS — Signed F
Jonathan Melee.
COLLEGE
MARQUETTE — Announced the hiring of
assistant women's basketball coach Tony
Greene.
SAINT JOSEPH'S — Announced men's
basketball G Jack Forrest has transferred
from Columbia. Signed F Jadrian Tracy.
FOOTBALL
N.F.L. DRAFT SELECTIONS
FIRST ROUND
1. Cincinnati, Joe Burrow, qb, L.S.U.
2. Washington, Chase Young, de, Ohio
State.
3. Detroit, Jeff Okudah, cb, Ohio State.
4. Giants, Andrew Thomas, ot, Georgia.
5. Miami, Tua Tagovailoa, qb, Alabama.
6. L.A. Chargers, Justin Herbert, qb, Oregon.
7. Carolina, Derrick Brown, dt, Auburn.
8. Arizona, Isaiah Simmons, lb, Clemson.
9. Jacksonville, CJ Henderson, cb, Florida.
10. Cleveland, Jedrick Wills, t, Alabama.
11. Jets, Mekhi Becton, ot, Louisville.
12. Las Vegas, Henry Ruggs III, wr,
Alabama.
13. Tampa Bay (from Indianapolis through
San Francisco), Tristan Wirfs, ot, Iowa.
14. San Francisco (from Tampa Bay), Javon
Kinlaw, dt, South Carolina.
15. Denver, Jerry Jeudy, wr, Alabama.
16. Atlanta, A.J. Terrell, cb, Clemson.
NO. 1 N.F.L. DRAFT SELECTIONS
The first choice in the annual N.F.L.
selection of college players with team,
position and college:
2020 — Joe Burrow, Cincinnati, QB, LSU.
2019 — Kyler Murray, Arizona, QB,
Oklahoma.
2018 — Baker Mayfield, Cleveland, QB,
Oklahoma.
2017 — Miles Garrett, Cleveland, DE,
Texas A&M.
2016 — Jared Goff, Los Angeles Rams,
QB, California.
2015 — Jameis Winston, Tampa Bay, QB,
Florida State.
2014 — Jadeveon Clowney, Houston
Texans, DE, South Carolina.
2013 — Eric Fisher, Kansas City, OT,
Central Michigan.
2012 — Andrew Luck, Indianapolis, QB,
Stanford.
2011 — Cam Newton, Carolina, QB,
Auburn.
2010 — Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams,
QB, Oklahoma.
2009 — Matthew Stafford, Detroit, QB,
Georgia.
2008 — Jake Long, Miami, OT, Michigan.
2007 — JaMarcus Russell, Oakland, QB,
LSU.
2006 — Mario Williams, Houston Texans,
DE, N.C. State.
2005 — Alex Smith, San Francisco, QB,
Utah.
2004 — Eli Manning, San Diego, QB,
Mississippi.
2003 — Carson Palmer, Cincinnati, QB,
Southern Cal.
2002 — David Carr, Houston Texans, QB,
Fresno State.
2001 — Michael Vick, Atlanta, QB, Virginia
Tech.
2000 — Courtney Brown, Cleveland, DE,
Penn State.
1999 — Tim Couch, Cleveland, QB,
Kentucky.
1998 — Peyton Manning, Indianapolis, QB,
Tennessee.
1997 — Orlando Pace, St. Louis Rams, T,
Ohio State.
1996 — Keyshawn Johnson, New York
Jets, WR, Southern Cal.
1995 — Ki-Jana Carter, Cincinnati, RB,
Penn State.
1994 — Dan Wilkinson, Cincinnati, DE,
Ohio State.
1993 — Drew Bledsoe, New England, QB,
Washington State.
1992 — Steve Emtman, Indianapolis, DE,
Washington.
1991 — Russell Maryland, Dallas, DL,
Miami.
1990 — Jeff George, Indianapolis, QB,
Illinois.
1989 — Troy Aikman, Dallas, QB, UCLA.
1988 — Aundray Bruce, Atlanta, LB,
Auburn.
1987 — Vinny Testaverde, Tampa Bay,
QB, Miami.
1986 — Bo Jackson, Tampa Bay, RB,
Auburn.
1985 — Bruce Smith, Buffalo, DT, Virginia
Tech.
1984 — Irving Fryar, New England, WR,
Nebraska.
1983 — John Elway, Baltimore Colts, QB,
Stanford.
1982 — Kenneth Sims, New England, DT,
Texas.
1981 — George Rogers, New Orleans, RB,
South Carolina.
1980 — Billy Sims, Detroit, RB, Oklahoma.
1979 — Tom Cousineau, Buffalo, LB, Ohio
State.
HEISMAN TROPHY WINNERS
N.F.L. DRAFT HISTORY
Where Heisman Trophy winners were
drafted with their year, school, position,
year of draft, N.F.L. team, round-overall
number if available. Total rounds of draft
in parentheses:
2019 — Joe Burrow, senior, LSU, QB,
Cincinnati, first-1 (7).
2018 — Kyler Murray, junior, Oklahoma,
QB, Arizona, first-1 (7).
2017 — Baker Mayfield, senior, Oklahoma,
QB, Cleveland, first-1 (7).
2016 — Lamar Jackson, sophomore,
Louisville, QB, 2017 not eligible. In 2018,
Baltimore, first-32 (7).
2015 — Derrick Henry, junior, Alabama,
RB, 2016, Tennessee, second-45 (7).
2014 — Marcus Mariota, junior, Oregon,
QB, 2015, Tennessee, first-2 (7).
2013 — Jameis Winston, freshman, Florida
State, QB, 2014 not eligible. In 2015,
Tampa Bay, first-1 (7).
2012 — Johnny Manziel, freshman, Texas
A&M, QB, 2013 not eligible. In 2014,
Cleveland, first-22 (7).
2011 — Robert Griffin III, junior, Baylor, QB,
2012, Washington, first-2 (7).
2010 — Cam Newton, junior, Auburn, QB,
2011, Carolina, first-1 (7).
2009 — Mark Ingram, sophomore,
Alabama, RB, 2010 not eligible. In 2011,
New Orleans, first-28 (7).
2008 — Sam Bradford, sophomore,
Oklahoma, QB, 2009 not eligible. In 2010,
St. Louis, first-1 (7).
2007 — Tim Tebow, sophomore, Florida,
QB, 2008-09 not eligible. In 2010, Denver,
first-25 (7).
2006 — Troy Smith, senior, Ohio State, QB,
2007, Baltimore, fifth-174 (7).
2005 — Reggie Bush, junior, Southern Cal,
RB, 2006, New Orleans, first-2 (7).
2004 — Matt Leinart, junior, Southern Cal,
QB, 2005, not eligible. In 2006, Arizona,
first-10 (7).
2003 — Jason White, junior, Oklahoma, QB,
2004 not eligible. In 2005, NOT SELECTED
(7).
2002 — Carson Palmer, senior, Southern
Cal, QB, 2003, Cincinnati, first-1 (7).
2001 — Eric Crouch, senior, Nebraska, QB,
2002, St. Louis, third-95 (7).
2000 — Chris Weinke, senior, Florida State,
QB, 2001, Carolina, fourth-106 (7).
1999 — Ron Dayne, senior, Wisconsin, RB,
2000, New York Giants, first-11 (7).
1998 — Ricky Williams, senior, Texas, RB,
1999, New Orleans, first-5 (7).
1997 — Charles Woodson, junior, Michigan,
CB, 1998, Oakland, first-4 (7).
1996 — Danny Wuerffel, senior, Florida,
QB, 1997, New Orleans, fourth-99 (7).
1995 — Eddie George, senior, Ohio State,
RB, 1996, Houston, first-14 (7).
1994 — Rashaan Salaam, junior, Colorado,
RB, 1995, Chicago, first-21 (7).
1993 — Charlie Ward, senior, Florida State,
QB, 1994, NOT SELECTED (7).
1992 — Gino Torretta, senior, Miami, QB,
1993, Minnesota, seventh-192 (8).
1991 — Desmond Howard, junior, Michigan,
WR, 1992, Washington, first-4 (12).
1990 — Ty Detmer, junior, Brigham Young,
QB, 1992, Green Bay, ninth-230 (12).
1989 — Andre Ware, junior, Houston, QB,
1990, Detroit, first-7 (12).
1988 — Barry Sanders, junior, Oklahoma
State, RB, 1989, Detroit, first-3 (12).
1987 — Tim Brown, senior, Notre Dame,
WR, 1988, Los Angeles Raiders, first-6 (12).
1986 — Vinny Testaverde, senior, Miami,
QB, 1987, Tampa Bay, first-1 (12).
1985 — Bo Jackson, senior, Auburn, TB,
1986, Tampa Bay, first-1 (12).
1984 — Doug Flutie, senior, Boston
College, QB, 1985, New Jersey-USFL,
territorial; 1985, Los Angeles Rams, 11th-
285 (12).
1983 — Mike Rozier, senior, Nebraska, TB,
1984, Pittsburgh-USFL, first-1; 1984 NFL
supplemental draft, Houston, first-2.
1982 — Herschel Walker, junior, Georgia,
HB, 1983, signed with New Jersey-USFL;
1985, Dallas-NFL, fifth-114 (12).
1981 — Marcus Allen, senior, Southern Cal,
TB, 1982, Oakland, first-10 (12).
1980 — George Rogers, senior, South
Carolina, HB, 1981, New Orleans, first-1 (12).
Villanova’s Two-Decade Run Without a One-and-Done
By ADAM ZAGORIA
When forward Jeremiah Rob-
inson-Earl, a freshman at Vil-
lanova, announced last week that
he would pull out of the N.B.A.
draft and return for his sopho-
more season, he kept alive a
streak that has been running for
nearly 25 years.
Villanova has not had a one-
and-done player under Coach Jay
Wright, and the program will not
have one this year, either. In fact,
the program’s last one was Tim
Thomas, who was taken seventh
in 1997, and that was even before
the N.B.A.’s so-called one-and-
done rule went into effect, in 2006.
It required players to be 19 and at
least one year removed from their
graduating high school class to
enter the draft.
That led to a wave of players
spending one year in college be-
fore entering the N.B.A. — but
none of them were from Villanova.
It is one of a couple of programs to
have eight or more players cur-
rently in the N.B.A. without a sin-
gle one-and-done. Virginia is an-
other.
Robinson-Earl, a 6-foot-9 pros-
pect from the Kansas City area,
“definitely would have gotten
drafted,” Wright said. But because
of the coronavirus pandemic, he
was one of several players from
high-profile programs who either
withdrew from the draft or did not
enter it.
He said the reason was the “un-
certainty” of what the N.B.A. was
“going to do and just kind of the
timeline of that.”
“I didn’t want to worry a lot
about that throughout the times
that we’re going through right
now,” he said. “I just want to keep
focusing on getting better and go-
ing back to Villanova and keep my
mind-set set on that.”
The N.B.A.’s early entry eligibil-
ity deadline, when underclassmen
have to declare for the draft, is
Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern
time. The deadline to withdraw is
June 15 at 5 p.m. Eastern time.
The draft is scheduled for June 25
at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The N.B.A. has not announced
any changes to those dates, or to
the draft combine, which is sched-
uled for May 21 to 24 in Chicago —
but it is widely expected that the
draft will be postponed to August
or September. It most likely de-
pends on if the 2019-20 N.B.A. sea-
son resumes and when it ends if it
does. The N.B.A. suspended its
season on March 11.
The league is considering a plan
in which it plays the remainder of
the regular season and playoffs in
Las Vegas. Major League Base-
ball is mulling a similar plan, with
all 30 teams playing in Arizona.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the direc-
tor of the National Institute of Al-
Spain’s Top Leagues Prepare an Extremely Careful Return to Action
By TARIQ PANJA
LONDON — Daily tests for co-
ronavirus. Only two people in the
gym at a time. Players dressing
for practice at home.
Those are just some of the pro-
tocols La Liga, the organizer of
Spain’s top two soccer leagues,
deems necessary to allow even
practice to take place before
games resume, with a new target
date of sometime in June. In
Spain, like almost every other
country in the world, play has
been suspended for weeks amid
efforts to halt the spread of the dis-
ease.
The guidelines are in a confi-
dential 23-page document re-
viewed by The New York Times.
They provide insight into the de-
tails of what is required to get ma-
jor sporting competition restarted
without compromising the health
of athletes or the wider popula-
tion.
The measures being formulated
appear more like those required
for a medical facility than for a
soccer team’s training ground.
But the league appears to be leav-
ing nothing to chance. As well as
the ubiquitous odor of disinfectant
and the sight of individuals in per-
sonal protective equipment, there
will also be a strict list of people
allowed at any one time, as well as
stringent protocols.
The pursuit to get back on the
field is driven by commercial rea-
sons as much as sporting merit.
La Liga’s president said calling off
the season would amount to a fi-
nancial catastrophe, which he es-
timated would cost teams in
Spain’s top division as much as
one billion euros (more than $1 bil-
lion).
Spain has been one of the hard-
est-hit countries during the crisis.
As of Thursday, its more than
213,000 confirmed cases were the
second-highest globally after the
United States, according to data
from Johns Hopkins University.
The number of deaths in Spain —
more than 22,000 — are more than
any country aside from the United
States and Italy.
With that in mind, the Spanish
THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl opted for a sure thing: returning to Villanova. The team’s last one-and-done player was Tim Thomas in 1997.
lergy and Infectious Diseases, re-
cently said professional sports
could return if two conditions
were met: No fans were in the
stands, and players were seques-
tered in hotels with regular
Covid-19 testing.
“There’s a way of doing that,”
Dr. Fauci told Peter Hamby on
“Good Luck America,” an original
series by Snapchat. “Nobody
comes to the stadium. Put them in
big hotels, wherever you want to
play, keep them very well
surveilled.”
He added, “Have them tested,
like every week, and make sure
they don’t wind up infecting each
other or their family, and just let
them play the season out.”
The uncertainty of the N.B.A.’s
plans has had an impact on other
college players considering the
draft.
Bill Self, the coach at Kansas,
said “probably one or two” of his
players would have entered the
draft had it been a normal year.
Two players from Florida, Scottie
Lewis and Keyontae Johnson,
opted to return to college, citing
the coronavirus. Lewis, a fresh-
man, expressed a desire to com-
pete in the N.C.A.A. tournament
next year after this year’s was
canceled as many conference
Social distancing may prove hard to enforce once play resumes.
league is aiming to start playing
games without spectators in June.
To get there, it has consulted with
experts to devise a monthlong
training protocol divided into four
stages. Two days before the re-
gimen begins, all the players,
Testing. Disinfectant.
Few contacts. And, of
course, no spectators.
coaches and any staff deemed
necessary to have contact with
them will be tested for both
Covid-19 symptoms and immunity
to the virus.
The tests will continue through-
out the month, with players tested
in their cars before being allowed
to enter practice facilities. A pos-
itive test at any point would result
in the player being sent home to
isolate until he is deemed no long-
er contagious. Their teammates
would also be sent home and
tested again before being allowed
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
tournaments were underway.
“Our season was cut short, and
we were not able to complete our
season that we were supposed to,”
Lewis wrote on Instagram. “My
dream of playing in the N.B.A. is
still a top priority, but my heart is
in Gainesville! With that being
said, I am more than happy to an-
A freshman exits the
draft over uncertainty
during the pandemic.
nounce that I will be returning for
the 2020-21 season.”
Darris Nichols, an assistant
coach at Florida, said he advised
his players that it might make
more sense to skip the draft
process this year. In a normal
year, some undergraduates would
“test the waters” by meeting with
and working out for N.B.A. teams.
A group of 60 or 70 players would
be invited to work out in front of
every team at the combine in May.
Each undergraduate would
then be evaluated by the under-
graduate advisory committee,
SOCCER
MARCELO DEL POZO/REUTERS
to return.
Taken as a whole, the guidelines
show the tightrope sports compe-
titions are treading as they plan a
return in the age of social distanc-
ing. Everything has been de-
signed to limit contact, something
that will jar many athletes used to
the daily ritual of being part of a
collective.
“The procedure drawn up by La
Liga is based on the clubs being
able to apply it in a confined man-
ner in a setting that is closed off
from the outside world, like a
training ground or team hotel, in
order to comply with the meas-
ures stipulated by the decree de-
claring the state of alarm,” the
document says, referring to the
strict restrictions imposed on the
nation by the Spanish govern-
ment on March 14.
Players used to having an army
of staff members catering to their
every need will now have to get
used to a more stripped-down en-
vironment.
In the first phase of the training
program, they may encounter
very few people. Players will be
expected to arrive at the training
which provides feedback on
where they might be drafted. De-
pending on the feedback, players
could return to campus if they
withdrew from the draft before
the deadline.
“That’s not happening this year,
so I don’t know what waters there
are to test,” Nichols said.
Because of restrictions on ac-
cess to gyms, players are limited
in what they can do.
“I’ve been doing a lot of ball-
handling, just kind of in the ga-
rage,’’ Robinson-Earl said. “Just
really safe ways of just getting in
the gym — just making sure
there’s very minimal people going
in and out. There have been times
when I found a gym but there
were too many people and I didn’t
want to risk doing that. I can even
work on technique outside on the
driveway.”
John Calipari, the coach at Ken-
tucky, has had five underclassmen
declare for the draft this spring.
None have pulled out. He said he
was worried about what kind of
shape college players would be in
when they had to work out for
N.B.A. teams.
“If they spend two months and
don’t do anything and then try to
go work out for an N.B.A. team, it
isn’t going to work out for them,”
ground at different intervals.
They would be expected to be
wearing protective gloves and
masks until the moment they start
to train. During this initial phase,
only six players would be allowed
on the practice field at any one
time.
Clubs are advised to design
training drills that require the
minimum amount of equipment
possible, while a maximum of two
players can be allowed in the gym
at the same time, and the equip-
ment must be disinfected after
each use.
Group training will only be per-
mitted in a limited manner at first,
with a maximum of eight players
being permitted to train together.
Those eight will not be able to mix
with any of the other players,
whether on the field or in the din-
ing areas. For the final period of
training, the players are expected
to lodge at the team’s practice fa-
cility, which will be operated by a
skeleton staff. For instance, only
one cook, equipment aide and
laundry attendant will be allowed
on the site. The coach will be al-
lowed to have a maximum of three
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Calipari said. “There are no gyms,
no health clubs, unless they have a
gym in their house, none of them
do. Unless they have a workout
area in their home, none of them
do, how are we doing this?”
Calipari also said that any play-
er considering entering the draft
should get more time to make
their decision.
Despite the uncertainty, pro-
grams like Villanova, Kansas and
Florida will benefit from the re-
turn of talented and experienced
players next season — assuming
there is a next season.
The Villanova sophomore Sad-
diq Bey, the Julius Erving Award
winner as the nation’s top small
forward, is likely to remain in the
draft. But Wright left the possibil-
ity open that Bey could change his
mind, too.
“If he doesn’t get something
that’s really definite, I think
there’s a chance he could come
back,” Wright said.
By extension, Wright won’t
know for certain what his roster
will look like until Bey makes a fi-
nal decision.
One thing is for sure: Because
of Robinson-Earl’s decision,
Wright’s streak of not having a
one-and-done will continue. And
he’s just fine with that.
assistants and three physiothera-
pists.
The austere, clinical nature of
La Liga’s buildup to a return also
extends to downtime. When not
training, players must return to
their rooms and not mix with any
teammates. Those who choose to
stay at home are advised to not go
out at any time unless they are
driving to the practice field, which
must always be done in the same
car.
Medical officials from a number
of La Liga teams had input in cre-
ating the protocol. It was prepared
jointly by staff members from the
league and officials from Real So-
ciedad, Grenada and Osasuna and
reviewed by medical profession-
als from four other teams, includ-
ing Atletico de Madrid and Sevilla.
A separate protocol for playing
games behind closed doors is be-
ing studied. The chief executive of
Germany’s Bundesliga, which ap-
pears on course to be the first of
Europe’s major leagues to restart,
projected 240 people would be re-
quired at each match, including
players, coaching staff and broad-
cast professionals.
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B14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Iris Love, Archaeologist,
Socialite and Breeder
Of Dogs, Is Dead at 86
By PENELOPE GREEN
She was Indiana Jones in a
miniskirt, a celebrity archaeolo-
gist hatched out of old New York
aristocracy. Iris Love, art histori-
an, champion dog breeder and the
longtime romantic partner of the
gossip columnist Liz Smith, was
just as comfortable in the ancient
world as in the society pages.
Ms. Love died of the novel coro-
navirus on April 17 at NewYork-
Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medi-
cal Center in Manhattan, a friend,
Carri Lyon, said. She was 86.
Sunburned, leggy and with a
mop of cropped blonde hair, Ms.
Love was catnip to the press.
‘A Givenchy-clad
scientist with a name
like a movie star.’
When, in 1971, The New York
Times wrote about her for the
third time, she was 38 and several
years into what would become an
11-year dig at Knidos, an ancient
Greek city that is now part of Tur-
key. There she discovered a tem-
ple to Aphrodite on the same sum-
mer day in 1969 that Neil Arm-
strong walked on the moon.
“A previous reporter from a
woman’s magazine has been dis-
appointed to learn that Miss Love
can’t wear skin creams at Knidos
because the dust would cling to
her face,” the Times reporter
wrote on a visit to her Upper East
Side apartment in Manhattan. “A
grocery carton bulging with the
week’s fan mail occupies the cen-
ter of the carpet like an icon.”
Ms. Love had already made
Robert Loomis, 93, Old-School Editor of Big-Name Books
By SAM ROBERTS
Robert Loomis, an editor who
bloodlessly transformed embry-
onic manuscripts by a pantheon of
20th-century American authors
into award-winning and best-sell-
ing books, died on Sunday in
Stony Brook, N.Y. He was 93.
His wife, Hilary Mills Loomis,
said he died at Stony Brook Uni-
versity Hospital after being air-
lifted from his home in Sag Har-
bor, where he had fallen earlier in
the day.
If Mr. Loomis was known to the
reading public only from the ac-
knowledgments pages of his au-
thors’ books, he was revered in lit-
erary circles and respected in the
publishing industry for his keen
judgment about which writers
and books held the greatest prom-
ise, and how to fulfill their poten-
tial.
He was also known for his for-
bearance in forgiving delays that
few publishers would tolerate
from an author.
His career began when he
joined Random House in 1957 and
went on to span the giddy era of its
founders, Bennett Cerf and Don-
ald S. Klopfer, the transition to the
computer keyboard (which Mr.
Loomis pecked with one finger)
and the world of digital publish-
ing.
By the time he formally retired
in 2011 at 85 as executive vice
president (and reluctantly gave
up his private pilot’s license), he
had served under a dozen Ran-
dom House publishers and edited
books by, among others, Maya An-
Noach Dear, 66, Judge
And Brooklyn Councilman
By SAM ROBERTS
Noach Dear, who served nearly
two decades on the New York City
Council as an outlier, advocating
on behalf of the conservative
agenda of his Orthodox Jewish
constituents in Brooklyn while de-
fending himself against accusa-
tions of conflicts of interest, died
on Sunday in Brooklyn. He was 66.
The cause was complications of
the coronavirus. His death, at
Maimonides Medical Center, was
confirmed in a statement by
Frank V. Carone, president of the
Brooklyn Bar Association.
In 1986, Mr. Dear vigorously
fought an anti-discrimination bill
that gay rights supporters had
been seeking for 15 years. Among
members of the City Council’s
General Welfare Committee, his
was the lone vote against the bill,
which was approved by the full
Council, 21 to 14. He was also an
opponent of abortion rights.
Mr. Dear was an outspoken
critic of David N. Dinkins, the
city’s first black mayor, accusing
him of handcuffing the police and
letting black people riot in the
Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown
Heights in 1991 after a car that was
part of the entourage of the Luba-
vitcher rebbe, or grand rabbi,
headlines when she was a gradu-
ate student at the Institute of Fine
Arts, New York University, for
outing as forgeries a prized group
of Etruscan warriors at the Metro-
politan Museum of Art. She made
headlines again when, on a visit to
the British Museum’s collection of
antiquities, she identified a crum-
bling marble head stashed in its
basement as being a remnant of
Praxiteles’ lost statue of Aphrodi-
te.
Neither storied institution was
pleased. Chalk it up perhaps to the
sexism of the time, and the paro-
chialism of her field. Also, though
she had completed the course
work for a doctorate, Ms. Love
never wrote a thesis, and as The
New Yorker noted in a profile of
her in 1978, her degree-less status
further irritated jealous peers,
who had derided her for her skill
at fund-raising, not to mention her
gender.
“Amazons,” one archaeologist
scoffed, referring to Ms. Love’s
mostly female crew at Knidos.
“Beautiful girls in bikinis,” said
another.
Ms. Love’s Turkish workers,
however, called her Mister Direc-
tor.
“She had a formidable energy
and enthusiasm that separated
her from the more cautious of her
peers,” said Maxwell Anderson, a
past curator of the department of
Greek and Roman Art at the Met.
“Archaeology relies on facts, and
Iris was given to informed and col-
orful speculation, which added
coloratura to the discipline. She
was a public intellectual in a way
that was not typical of archaeolo-
gy.”
Iris Cornelia Love was born on
Aug. 1, 1933, in New York City. Her
father, Cornelius Ruxton Love Jr.,
was a diplomat, an investment
gelou (who compared him to “the
rainbow in the clouds” in Gene-
sis), Daniel J. Boorstin, Pete Dex-
ter, Shelby Foote, Jonathan Harr,
Seymour Hersh, Jim Lehrer, Ed-
mund Morris, Joseph E. Persico,
David Rockefeller, Neil Sheehan,
William Styron (a former Duke
classmate whom he first edited on
the student literary magazine)
and Calvin Trillin.
Armed with a medium soft pen-
cil, Mr. Loomis polished his au-
thors’ prose in the spirit of Max-
well Perkins, who had edited
Revered in literary
circles for his keen
judgment on writers.
Fitzgerald, Hemingway and
Thomas Wolfe and who had ad-
vised writers to “just get it down
on paper and then we’ll see what
to do with it.”
Bennett Cerf described Mr.
Loomis in his 1977 memoir, “At
Random,” as “one of those pains-
taking editors in the old tradition.”
He was so solicitous that, at first
blush, an author might be lured
into believing that his manuscript,
gingerly sprinkled with rhetorical
questions, was virtually complete
— only to be invited to a rigorous
line-by-line copy-editing tutorial
at Mr. Loomis’s desk, or a broader
conversation over two doubles of
swerved out of control and killed a
7-year-old black child, Gavin Cato.
The accident touched off a ram-
page in which a group of black
youths fatally stabbed Yankel
Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish
scholar from Australia.
Mr. Dinkins condemned what
he called “the lynching of Yankel
Rosenbaum” and admitted that
the police had made tactical er-
rors, but he denied that officers
had been deliberately con-
strained. Mr. Dear demanded an
investigation of police tactics and
later sought a Council resolution
denouncing the acquittal of the
prime suspect.
Though enrolled as a Democrat,
Mr. Dear was among those who
bolted the party to support the
mayoral candidacy of Rudolph W.
Giuliani, a Republican, against
Mayor Dinkins in 1993. Mr. Giuli-
ani won narrowly.
Beginning in the 1990s, Mr.
Dear raised millions of dollars for
the presidential campaigns of Bill
Clinton and Al Gore, as well as so-
liciting contributions for himself.
Repeated overlapping interests
between his role as a councilman
and politician and his business in-
vestments and charitable activi-
ties prompted several investiga-
tions into potential conflicts. His
banker employed by his father-in-
law, a collector and a descendant
of Alexander Hamilton. Her
mother, Audrey B. (Josephthal)
Love, was an heiress and arts pa-
tron, the daughter of Edyth
Guggenheim and Louis Jo-
sephthal, an admiral and the
founder of a brokerage firm.
Her parents were remote fig-
ures, as was the custom of the
time for her demographic, but
luckily she had a British govern-
ess, Katie Wray, who happened to
be a classicist. Iris learned Latin
before first grade and would grow
up to be a polylinguist. She spoke
Greek, French, German, Italian
and Turkish and could make her
way in Mandarin, Russian and Ar-
abic. At her death she was study-
ing Portuguese.
She was famously loquacious in
Jack Daniel’s at lunch.
With his spare notes in the mar-
gins — “are you sure?” or “we
know this?” — Mr. Loomis
“taught me and oh so many others
what writing a book was all
about,” Mr. Hersh said in an email.
Mr. Trillin recalled those “mys-
terious little check marks next to
things in the manuscript.”
“He says, ‘It’s almost there,’ ”
Mr. Trillin said. “ ‘Everything is
great, but the beginning and the
end.’”
In 1988, Mr. Loomis scored an
industry coup when two of his
books, Mr. Dexter’s novel “Paris
Trout” and Mr. Sheehan’s “A
Bright Shining Lie: John Paul
Vann and America in Vietnam,”
each won a National Book Award.
Mr. Sheehan’s biography also won
the Pulitzer Prize.
After being commissioned at
100,000 words with a submission
deadline in the early 1970s, “A
Bright Shining Lie” was published
in 1988 at 360,000 words. Mr. Shee-
han and Mr. Loomis had spent a
year pruning it by about 110,000.
“Writers tend to resist editing,
but you trusted Bob and knew
how much he cared about your
work,” Mr. Sheehan said in a
phone interview. “He would help
me to understand what he would
have done, and then do it his way
to make it a better book. That book
would not be the book it is without
Bob.”
Robert Duane Loomis was born
on Aug. 24, 1926, in Conneaut,
Ohio, near Lake Erie, to Kline and
Louise (Chapman) Loomis. His
RUBY WASHINGTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Noach Dear in 2010. As a judge he handled cases involving debt owed to credit card companies
and questioned laws regarding drinking alcohol in public. Above right, Councilman Dear, right, in
1986 with Serphin R. Maltese, chairman of the Conservative Party in New York State.
liberal allocation of campaign
funds for foreign trips and person-
al expenses also came under scru-
tiny. No charges were ever filed.
In the 1980s, Mr. Dear opened a
kosher restaurant that went bank-
rupt, and in 1993 he agreed to re-
pay more than $37,000 to a private
foundation that had financed his
home telephone and trips abroad
for his children.
As chairman of the Council’s
transportation committee, Mr.
Dear supported horse carriage
drivers, many of whom were of
Irish heritage, over the objections
of animal-rights advocates, who
JACK ROBINSON/CONDÉ NAST, VIA GETTY IMAGES
English, too. Ms. Smith used to
chastise Ms. Love, as she noted in
her memoir, “Natural Blonde”
(2000): “Don’t begin the story
back when they invented lan-
guage. Get to the bottom line.”
Ms. Love attended the Brearley
School in Manhattan and the Ma-
deira School in Virginia, where
classmates taunted her for being
Jewish, a lineage she had not un-
derstood was hers until then.
She graduated from Smith Col-
lege in 1955; Sylvia Plath was a
classmate. She earned a master’s
degree from N.Y.U.’s Institute of
Fine Arts and had finished Ph.D.
classes there, but not her thesis,
because as she often said, she was
too busy with Knidos, overseeing
the dig each summer and fund-
raising most winters, to write it.
“She brought archaeology and
father was a public school princi-
pal and, in the 1950s, mayor of
Plain City, a village near Colum-
bus, Ohio. His mother was a
teacher.
“Books guided my life from high
school,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011.
“I was able to associate with great
minds through their books.”
After serving in the Army Air
Forces at the end of World War II,
he graduated from Duke in 1949
with a bachelor’s degree in litera-
ture. But by then he had already
given up his dream of becoming a
writer and had turned to editing.
“I couldn’t write well enough!” he
told Vanity Fair.
His first marriage, to Gloria Col-
liani, who became a literary agent,
ended in divorce. He is survived
by a daughter, Diana, from his
first marriage; a son, Miles, from
his marriage to Hilary Mills, a bi-
ographer of Norman Mailer under
the name Hilary Mills Loomis;
and two grandsons.
After college Mr. Loomis wrote
book ads at the publishing house
Appleton-Century, worked as an
editor at Holt, Rinehart & Winston
and was recruited to Random
House by another Duke alumnus,
Hiram Haydn.
Mr. Loomis likened editing to a
quasi-religious function.
“You have to turn your collar
around like a priest,” he said. “You
offer a lot of praise, you have con-
fession and you have faith, and
pretty soon they might trust you
enough to know that you’re not
trying to make the book in your
own image. It’s their book.”
sought to bar the carriages from
city streets. He said he owed the
Irish a great debt because they
had supported the founding of Is-
rael.
In 1998, Mr. Dear sought the
congressional seat vacated by
Chuck Schumer after Mr. Schu-
mer’s successful run for the
United States Senate. But Mr.
Dear wound up third in the Demo-
cratic primary in which fellow
Councilman Anthony D. Weiner
was nominated. (Mr. Weiner won
the seat in the general election.)
Term limits kept Mr. Dear from
seeking re-election to the Council
At left, Iris Love in an undated photo. She discovered a temple to
Aphrodite in 1969 in Knidos, an ancient Greek city which she
excavated with a mostly female crew. She was also a longtime ro-
mantic partner of the columnist Liz Smith, above right in 1991.
ancient art to a whole new strata
of society,” Carlos Picon, an antiq-
uities expert who was curator of
Greek and Roman art at the Met
for 28 years, said in a phone inter-
view. “She popularized it and
warmed it up, and it seemed like
everybody knew her name. You
could go to the middle of the most
faraway city and they would have
heard of Iris. There are enough
Ph.D.s, and whether we gained
another book or not doesn’t mat-
ter in the long run. More than once
Iris helped me secure objects and
funding for the museum.”
In her memoir, Ms. Smith re-
called falling for Ms. Love — “a Gi-
venchy-clad scientist with a name
like a movie star” — at a dinner
party in 1977. She said she had
been taken by Ms. Love’s guile-
lessness and energy, her complete
lack of interest in pop culture, her
intellect and her love of a good
party.
They traveled the world togeth-
er, and Ms. Love and her many
dachshunds moved into Ms.
Smith’s apartment. By the late
1980s, she had begun to breed
dogs in earnest from her property
in Vermont, including a number of
Westminster Kennel Club cham-
pions. She liked to name the dogs
for figures in Greek mythology,
Robert Loomis with Maya Angelou at a celebration of Mr.
Loomis’s 50 years at Random House in 2007. Below, Mr. Loomis
in 1999 with Ann Godoff, the president of Random House. He
formally retired in 2011 at 85 as its executive vice president.
ÁNGEL FRANCO/THE NEW YORK TIMES
in 2001. The next year, he lost a pri-
mary for the State Senate in a
more racially diverse district. By
then he had so irked the party or-
ganization by repeatedly chal-
lenging the seat’s incumbent,
Kevin S. Parker, that he had to
wangle a nomination to a judge-
ship on the Civil Court.
On the bench he handled as
many as 100 credit card collection
cases a day, and estimated that in
a vast majority of cases, credit
card companies and banks could-
n’t provide proof that any debt
was actually owed.
He also declared that a law
CATHERINE MCGANN/GETTY IMAGES
like Achilles and Tyche.
Ms. Smith was proud of her
companion’s new métier, though it
came with complications. Ms.
Love, always peripatetic, spent
months in Italy, often with another
longtime partner, Bice Brichetto,
an Italian baroness, artist and cos-
tume designer, leaving Ms. Smith,
as she wrote, to take care of “Iris
business” and the dogs. After 15
years, Ms. Smith had had enough,
she wrote, though they remained
friends until Ms. Smith’s death in
2017. Ms. Love left no immediate
survivors.
“I had lovely times with Iris,
who might have been a headache,
but literally never was a bore to
me,” Ms. Smith wrote.
Their annual Westminster dog
party at Tavern on the Green in
Manhattan, with a guest list typi-
cally exceeding 500 people, was a
canine extravaganza. There were
pate molds shaped like
dachshunds, ice sculptures
shaped like fire hydrants and ev-
eryone, including the dogs, in cos-
tume. Ms. Love appeared, vari-
ously, as Alexander Hamilton, Cle-
opatra and a Viking.
“She rose every morning con-
vinced she could move the world if
only she had a lever,” Ms. Smith
wrote of her friend.
HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
LIBRADO ROMERO/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Opponent of abortion
and gay rights, and
critic of black mayor.
against drinking alcohol in public
discriminated against racial mi-
norities, and said the police would
have to prove through laboratory
tests that a beverage contained al-
cohol before serving a valid sum-
mons.
Mr. Dear was born on Nov. 20,
1953, the son of Sidney and Joan
(Lipins) Dear. After attending Ye-
shiva Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn,
he graduated from Brooklyn Col-
lege with a bachelor’s degree in
1975 and a master’s in social work
in 1977. He received his law degree
from Brooklyn Law School in 1991.
Mr. Dear was district manager
of the local community board,
served on the Taxi and Limousine
Commission and was elected to
the Civil Court in 2007 despite ini-
tially being rated “not approved”
by the screening committee of the
Brooklyn Bar Association and the
Association of the Bar of the City
of New York. He was appointed an
acting Supreme Court justice in
2010 and elected to a 15-year term
on the State Supreme Court in
2015.
His survivors include his wife,
Rickly (Neiman) Dear, a speech
pathologist, and four daughters,
Rivka, Adina, Chaviva and Aliza.
 THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N B15

Donald Kennedy, 88, Neurobiologist

Dr. Kennedy’s marriage to
Jeanne Dewey ended in divorce.
In addition to his wife, Robin Ham-
ill, who was associate counsel at

Who Led F.D.A. and Stanford, Dies
By SAM ROBERTS
Donald Kennedy, a neurobiolo-
gist who headed the Food and
Drug Administration before be-
coming president of Stanford Uni-
versity, where he oversaw major
expansions of its campus and cur-
riculum and weathered a crisis
over research spending, died on
April 21 in Redwood City, Calif. He
was 88.
His death, at a residential care
facility, was caused by complica-
tions of the new coronavirus, his
wife, Robin Kennedy, said. He had
suffered a severe stroke in 2015.
Stanford had been Dr. Ken-
nedy’s life since 1960, when, not
yet 30, he joined its faculty as an
assistant professor of biology. And
except for a stint in the late 1970s
as head of the F.D.A. under Presi-
dent Jimmy Carter, he remained
wedded to the university, becom-
ing provost and then president in
1980, beginning an 11-year tenure.
It was a productive one. During
his presidency the university
opened the Stanford Humanities
Center and campuses in Oxford,
England; Kyoto, Japan; and
Washington; diversified the West-
ern culture curriculum; and
raised $1.2 billion in a five-year
centennial campaign, although by
the end of the decade the univer-
sity was facing deficits.
His tenure also coincided with
fiery debates over antiwar pro-
tests and academic freedom by
both professors and students, di-
vestiture of the university’s hold-
ings in companys doing business
in South Africa, and $160 million in
damage inflicted by the Loma Pri-
eta Earthquake in 1989.
A would-be writer who had be-
come a neurobiologist in college
adventitiously, Dr. Kennedy found
his leadership under the micro-
scope in the early 1990s, when the
university was accused — and lat-
er cleared — of improperly billing
the Navy for research expenses.
The accusations were aired by
federal auditors and Representa-
tive John D. Dingell Jr., a tena-
cious Michigan Democrat, who
said that Stanford may have billed
the government for as much as
$200 million in improper ex-
As a university
president, he oversaw
major expansions.
penses on research contracts for
over a decade.
By 1994, Stanford had agreed
that a total of about $3 million had
been inadvertently billed to the
government, but the federal audi-
tors concluded that there was no
evidence of misrepresentation by
the university.
Still, the damage was done to
Stanford’s reputation, and Dr.
Kennedy resigned in 1991, attrib-
uting the government accusations
to political and personal vendettas
and acknowledging that they had
contributed to his decision to step
down.
“It is very difficult, I have con-
cluded, for a person identified
with a problem to be the spokes-
man for its solution,” he said in an-
nouncing his resignation. He went
on to edit the journal Science.
But he had his ardent support-
ers on the Bay Area campus,
where he was known to bike to
work and engage with students.
Among them was his protégé
Cory Booker, the future senator
from New Jersey, whom Dr. Ken-
nedy had encouraged to apply for
a Rhodes Scholarship.
“To watch him lead through the
indirect cost crisis, through pro-
fessional and personal attacks,
under tremendous stress and
strain, with clouds amassed over
his head and challenges raining
on him," Senator Booker wrote in
the foreword to Dr. Kennedy’s
memoir, “A Place in the Sun”
(2017), “was a study in leadership,
character, and discipline, always
better shown in times of crisis
than when all is going well.”
Donald Kennedy was born on
Aug. 18, 1931, in Manhattan to
William and Barbara (Bean) Ken-
nedy. His father was a writer, an
editor and an assistant dean of the
Harvard Business School. His
mother was a teacher and journal-
ist.
As his father repeatedly
switched jobs, Donald was raised
in about a half-dozen locales, in-
cluding Greenwich, Conn., by the
time he was 15.
After graduating from the Dub-
lin School in New Hampshire, he
enrolled in Harvard University in-
tending to major in English and be
a writer; at one point he received
an A on a 5,000-word final paper in
creative writing. But, as he re-
Donald Kennedy giving the commencement address at Stanford
University in 1978, when he was the commissioner of the F.D.A.
called in his memoir, his professor,
perhaps pointing him toward a
more profitable profession, asked
him over sherry one night: “ ‘Tell
me, Don. What else interests
you?’ ”
“Surprised by the question, I
gathered my wits and responded,
‘Well, biology and natural history,
I guess.’ ”
“‘Biology,’ he said. ‘That sounds
like a wonderful choice.’ ”
He earned his bachelor’s degree
in 1952, followed by a master’s and
a doctorate, all three from Har-
vard. And all in biology.
Dr. Kennedy was recruited to
the F.D.A. in 1977 by Joseph A. Cal-
ifano Jr., the secretary of health,
education and welfare. During his
tenure there the agency’s pro-
posed ban on saccharin, the artifi-
cial sweetener, was defeated, but
overall his record won plaudits
from industry representatives
and consumer advocates alike.
He returned to Stanford briefly
CHUCK PAINTER/STANFORD NEWS SERVICE
as provost before he was named
president.
Dr. Kennedy was a familiar
presence on campus, not only bik-
ing to the quadrangle but also in-
viting students to join him on his
morning runs up to the Dish, the
radio antenna in the foothills of
the campus.
“Kennedy is not someone
whom students hear once when
they arrive and then once when
they graduate,” The Stanford
Daily, the student newspaper, edi-
torialized in 1991.
A former student, Ingrid
Schwontes Jackoway, was quoted
as saying in an alumni publica-
tion: “I will never forget Donald
Kennedy getting up on the lab ta-
ble at the front of the lecture hall
and assuming a quadruped posi-
tion to demonstrate to us the con-
cepts of dorsal, ventral, cephalo
and caudal. His first concern was
always with teaching effectively,
not preserving his dignity.”
Stanford when they married in
1987, he is survived by two daugh-
ters from his first marriage, Page
Kennedy Rochon and Julia Ken-
nedy Tussing; two stepchildren,
Cameron Kennedy and Jamie
Hamill; and nine grandchildren. A
brother, Dorsey, died before him.
Dr. Kennedy was the editor in
chief of Science, the weekly jour-
nal of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science,
from 2000 to 2008. But even there
he was not immune to contro-
versy. Researchers had fabricated
their findings in several articles,
and a reported sighting of an ex-
tinct ivory-billed woodpecker ap-
peared to have been mistaken.
Among his other books were
“The Cold and the Dark: The
World After Nuclear War” (1984)
with Carl Sagan and Paul R.
Ehrlich, and “Academic Duty”
(1997). At his death he was Bing
professor for environmental sci-
ence emeritus at Stanford.
Shortly after he became presi-
dent, Dr. Kennedy told the student
radio station, KZSU, that he in-
tended to keep his perspective de-
spite the pressures of the job.
“The president is ultimately the
person to whom the problems
come,” he said. “What you need
then is to walk around, or visit a
dormitory, or to give a class, or to
meet a student who wants to come
in and talk about a career choice. I
find those occasions very uplifting
because they’re not automatically
negative. They’re not the kind of
problems that are programmed
for the president’s desk because
they haven’t been solved by any-
body else. Instead, they’re the
kinds of things that go on around
here day by day, and make this a
terrific place.”

Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths

ANZAROOT—Ralph.
We mourn with deep sorrow
the passing, on April 22, 2020,
of our dear friend and travel
companion Ralph Anzaroot.
Ralph survived many chal-
lenges in his 95 years. A ve-
teran of World War II, he
earned a Purple Heart Medal
for being wounded during the
Battle of the Bulge. He sur-
vived a stroke in 2016, and al-
though gravely disabled, al-
ways smiled when we asked
if he was ready to go to Atlan-
tic City, one of his favorite
trips. We will miss you, Ral-
phie.
Roxana and Abe Shalo
BAROVICK—Barry M.
April 24, 1949 - April 8, 2020.
Beloved Husband of Jane.
Loving Father of Allison
(Scott) and Daniel. Grand-
father of Brody and Fiona.
Esteemed member of NY/NJ
Real Estate Community.
Lifelong Deadhead. A cele-
bration of Barry's life will
take place at a later date.
Jane, Allison, Scott, Daniel
BERNSTEIN—Bebe.
UJA-Federation of New York
mourns the passing of
Bebe Bernstein, beloved
mother and mother-in-law of
our dear friends Karen and
Andrew Belfer, who exhibit
an unwavering commitment
of leadership and generosity
within the Jewish communi-
ty, and especially to Holo-
caust survivors. We extend
our heartfelt condolences to
the entire family.
Amy A. B. Bressman,
President;
David L. Moore,
Chair of the Board;
Eric S. Goldstein, CEO
BERNSTEIN—Louis B.
Louis B. Bernstein, of Rose-
land, NJ, passed away at St.
Barnabas Hospital in Living-
ston, New Jersey on Tuesday,
April 21, 2020 at the age of
92. The cause of death was
COVID-19 related illness. Lo-
uis will be buried at Mount
Lebanon Cemetery in Iselin,
NJ. Funeral services will be
private. A celebration of his
life will be held at a later date.
Louis was born in Newark, NJ
on February 5, 1928, the son
of Alice and Leo. He was
raised in Maplewood, NJ
where he attended Columbia
High School and then the
School of Commerce at New
York University. He served in
the US Army and was sta-
tioned in Japan at the end of
WWII. Louis started his
career in the display business
working with his uncle and
mentor Samuel Blum and
then as a salesman for De-
corative Plant, Leo Prager
and Greneker. He became a
co-owner of Resident Display
with Bud Rosen and Martin
Pegler. He later formed Louis
B. Bernstein, Inc. where,
working with his wife, Rita, he
designed his own displays.
Louis' lifelong hobby was
photography and he had sev-
eral exhibitions well into his
80s. Louis was the beloved
husband of Rita Bernstein
and the late Darby Reid. He
was the devoted father of
Alyse, Robert (Shizuka),
Glenn (Debra) and Marc
(Stephanie). He was the dear
brother of Rita Reich, Larry
Bernstein and the late Harold
Bernstein. He was the proud
grandfather of Fukutaro
(Milena), Taijiro (Mabel), Ni-
kita, Samantha and Taylor,
and the great-grandfather of
Gen. In lieu of flowers, please
consider a donation to the
Valerie Fund which provides
health care services to child-
ren with cancer and blood dis-
orders, 2101 Millburn Avenue,
Maplewood, NJ 07040.
BUCH—Rene.
The Board of Directors of Re-
pertorio Espanol deeply
mourns Founding Artistic Di-
rector Rene Buch who
passed peacefully at home
on Sunday. His contribution
to the theatrical mosaic in
New York was immeasurable
with his love for classical and
contemporary playwrights.
Our deepest condolences to
his family, Maria Margarita,
Ernesto Antonio, Leonel and
Enid as well as to his entire
Repertorio family.
ECKLUND—Peter Johnson,
age 74, died in Brooklyn, New
York on April 8, 2020, after a
long battle with Parkinson's
Disease. A Yale graduate,
Mr. Ecklund earned degrees
in both history (BA) and
teaching (MAT). Peter Eck-
lund pursued a 50-year
professional career in New
York as a cornetist, compo-
ser, and arranger, specializ-
ing in American pre-swing
jazz. He performed with Leon
Redbone, the David Brom-
berg Band, Greg Allman, and
the Orphan Newsboys with
Marty Grosz as well as Vince
Giordano's Nighthawks, a
1920's dance band, among
others. He also performed for
the sound tracks for the Ken
Burns documentaries includ-
ing The Civil War, Baseball,
and The American West and
regularly arranged music for
Saturday Night Live. Mr. Eck-
lund published two books of
great trumpet and cornet so-
los by Louis Armstrong and
Bix Beiderbacke. Friends and
family remember Peter Eck-
und's quiet and unassuming
manner, his keen intelligence,
and his dry humor. He was
the son of the late John Ed-
win and Mary Sizer Ecklund
of Woodbridge, Connecticut.
Mr. Ecklund is survived by
two sisters: Hilda Ecklund Oll-
mann of Round Rock, Texas
and Elizabeth (Lisa) Ecklund
Berger of Chapel Hill, North
Carolina; one brother, John
(Jack) Edwin Ecklund of
Olympia, Washington; and
stepmother Constance Cryer
Ecklund of Woodbridge, Con-
necticut, one niece, three
nephews, a great-niece, and
six great-nephews. One
great-nephew, a trombonist,
was being taught musical im-
provisation by Peter.
GELLER—Jerome J “Jerry,”
passed away on Tuesday,
April 21, 2020, at the age
of 100 in Palm Beach Gar-
dens, FL. He was an adored
Popi, father, and uncle to his
beloved family. In lieu of
flowers, donations may be
made in his memory to the
Sid Jacobson JCC, 300 Forest
Drive, Greenvale, NY 11548.
HOFFEE—John.
The Joyce Theater Founda-
tion is deeply saddened by
the passing of John Hoffee,
beloved spouse of Larry E.
Condon. As Trustees of the
LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable
Trust, John and Larry have
generously supported dance
for decades as well as music
and theater, human and civil
rights, parks and open space,
and environmental protec-
tion benefiting all New
Yorkers. We extend heartfelt
condolences to Larry, and
their families, friends, and
Mertz Trust colleagues.
Virginia A. Millhiser,
Board Chair;
Linda Shelton,
Executive Director
HOGENAUER—David E.,
died three weeks ago.
Love and sympathy to wife
Claire, siblings, children,
cousins and friends.
Cousin Clare Hogenauer
KRIEGER—Steven.
Our hearts go out to Dotty,
Mitchell, Kate, Evan, Stepha-
nie. Grandchildren Miles, An-
nabelle and Phoebe. We lost
a good friend, brother-in-law,
uncle. Rest in peace.
Phyllis, Bernie,
Michael, Maurley,
Adam and Trish
LANE—John Joseph,
beloved husband of Elizabeth
June, proud father of Clem,
Virginia, Diana and Mary
Kate, even prouder grand-
father of Harrison, Currie,
Gwen, Jack, Finn, Teag, Kin-
zie, Billy, Maggie and Mary
Ita, died on April 22, 2020, after
a long illness. Jesuit educated
at Loyola Academy and Loy-
ola University-Chicago, from
which he was also conferred
an honorary degree by the
School of Journalism in re-
cognition of his principled
service to the field, Lane
served in the Army infantry
during the Korean War be-
fore embarking upon a 45-
year career in print and then
broadcast journalism. He be-
gan at Chicago's City News
Bureau, moved to the Chica-
go Daily News where his fath-
er had retired as City Editor,
then moved to CBS News
where he eventually became
senior producer of the CBS
Evening News with Walter
Cronkite for seven years.
Lane joined CNN in 1990 as a
senior producer on a news
magazine show and a few
years later became vice-
president and senior editorial
producer for the show. He re-
tired from CNN in 1998. A dai-
ly communicant, Lane was
actively engaged in and a ge-
nerous contributor to the so-
cial ministry of the Catholic
Church. He and his family for
decades helped prepare
Thanksgiving and Christmas
dinners for the guests of
P.O.T.S., a soup kitchen and
shelter for the homeless and
hungry in the Bronx, which he
also served as a board mem-
ber. He was distinguished by
the delight he took in making
and sustaining friendships
over many, many years, no
matter the distance or cir-
cumstance. His kindness and
selflessness made a lasting
mark on all who had the privi-
lege to meet him. For those
who wish, please send dona-
tions in his memory to
P.O.T.S., 2759 Webster
Avenue, Bronx, New York
10458, www.potsbronx.org.
LOVE—Vincent M.
In New York City on April 16
at the age of 88. Mr. Love was
born in New Rochelle, NY in
1931. The family moved to
Wellesley, MA. He was pre-
deceased by his parents,
Arthur M. Love and Rosa
(Greeko) Love. Survived by
his brother, Arthur M. Love,
Jr. and his wife Carol of Ash-
land, MA. Beloved nephews
Arthur M. Love III and his
wife Karen of Ashland, MA
and Andrew M. Love and his
wife Elizabeth of Wayland,
MA. Great-nephews Arthur
M. Love IV of Medford, MA
and Andrew M. Love, Jr. of
Wayland, his niece Jessica
Love and her fiance Dylan
L'Heureux of Manchester,
NH. Mr. Love was educated
in the Wellesley School sys-
tem and graduated from Riv-
ers Country Day School. He
graduated from Brown Uni-
versity with a major in Amer-
ican Civilization and Wharton
School of Business at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. Af-
ter graduation, he joined the
United States Army. These
educational experiences lead
to his deep interest in trans-
portation and the shipping in-
dustry. His business career
began with the U.S. Lines and
continued until he joined Jef-
freys Avalon as Vice Pres-
ident of the Mayflower Hotel
in NYC. He pursued his inter-
est in U.S. history and ob-
tained a collection of memor-
abilia of shipping disasters
and World Fair Posters. He
continued his interest in
historic ships and became an
expert on the Titanic disaster.
He served as an expert
consultant of the first Titanic
movies. After retirement, he
volunteered as a research
docent at the South Street
Seaport Museum NYU. Mr.
Love was an avid fan of the
opera and never missed a
production at the Met. He
was a frequent sailor at fami-
ly gatherings belonging to the
Boston Yacht Club and the
Royal Nova Scotia Yacht
Squadron. He was a member
of the New York Historical
Archives Society and an ac-
tive member of the Republi-
can Conservative Party. He
will be deeply missed by mul-
tiple friends in NYC and
in New England especially
Marilyn and Norbert Dengler
and all of the Dengler family.
Funeral service and inter-
ment private. To sign a
guestbook:
www.everettfuneral.com
MARK—Joan.
62 years of friendship and
memories. I will always miss
you.
Love, Abby
McEVOY—John S.,
92, of Cedarhurst, NY passed
away on March 20, 2020 in
Cedarhurst, NY. Born in New
Anzaroot, Ralph Krieger, Steven
Barovick, Barry Lane, John
Bernstein, Beb Love, Vincent
Bernstein, Louis Mark, Joan
Buch, Rene McEvoy, John
Ecklund, Peter McNally, Elizabeth
Geller, Jerome Pearl, Richard
Hoffee, John Roberts, Suzanne
Hogenauer, David Roth, Phyllis
York City on December 28,
1927. Beloved son of the late
Harold W. McEvoy, deceased
1985 and the late Frances Mc-
Evoy, deceased 1995. Gra-
duate of Fordham Prep, Jan-
uary 1946, Fordham Universi-
ty B.S., June 1949, New York
Law School LL.B., June 1955.
U.S. Army Reserve 1st Lt.,
1948-1962. Investment Officer
and AVP Chase Manhattan
Bank, 1967-1974. Retired Vice
President European Ameri-
can Bank, January 1985. Re-
tired Vice President Bank
of New York, January 1997.
Predeceased by dear friend
Nancy E. Dowd of Rockville
Centre, NY. Survived by cou-
sins Mrs. William Lortz of
Sheldon, South Carolina and
Mrs. Antony Hinton of
London, England. Memorial
Mass and interment at
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx,
NY to be scheduled for
a future date.
McNALLY—
Elizabeth Scaer.
On April 10, 2020, Good Fri-
day, Elizabeth Scaer McNally
of Douglaston, NY, passed at
the age of 88. She was born in
Brooklyn, NY on September
15, 1931. A much beloved sis-
ter, mother and grandmoth-
er, she was preceded into
death by her husband, Dr. Ed-
mund F. McNally and her son
Edmund M. McNally, whose
life was taken on September
11, 2001. She is survived by
her four daughters: Lydia
McNally Danenberg of Cha-
tham, NJ; Amy McNally
Franks of New York, NY;
Katherine Smith of Little Sil-
ver, NJ and Mary Wallace of
Houston, TX. She was espe-
cially proud of her 12 grand-
children: Erin McNally Day,
Brienne McNally, Shannon
McNally, Davis Franks,
Andrew Franks, William
Franks, Paul Danenberg,
Aidan Smith, Bailey Smith,
Summer Smith, Katherine
Wallace and Mackenzie
Wallace. She is also survived
by her brother Dr. David
Scaer of Fort Wayne, IN, and
sister, Jean VanGilder of
Pococo Pines, PA. Her late
parents were Reverend Paul
and Victoria Scaer of Brook-
lyn, NY. She graduated from
The Packer Collegiate Insti-
tute, Brooklyn, NY and
Brooklyn College, NY. Until
the end, she kept busy with
the activities she loved: con-
necting with family and
friends, keeping up on social
media, reading, following the
news, and even preparing her
own taxes. She was buried on
April 15, 2020 in Green-wood
Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY. A
celebration of life memorial
service will be communicat-
ed at a future date. Through
our tears, we will smile as
we remember the love and
joy you brought to our lives.
God protect you until we
meet again. We'll see you
bye and bye.
PEARL—Richard A.
First Manhattan Co. mourns
the passing of Richard Pearl,
our longtime partner, col-
league and friend. Dick joined
the Firm at its inception in
1964. He eventually headed
the firm's Institutional Sales
Department and in 1976 be-
came a Partner, a position he
held for several decades.
During his tenure in the Insti-
tutional Sales Department,
Dick hired and mentored
many colleagues who, like
him, became significant con-
tributors to the firm. As the
firm's business shifted to in-
vestment management, Dick
also gravitated to managing
accounts for the many rela-
tionships he had developed
over the years. He ultimately
became a full-time money
manager, a role he retained
until his retirement in 2017.
His clients viewed him as
both a trusted adviser and a
valued friend. During his
more than five decades with
First Manhattan Co., Dick de-
veloped a close working rela-
tionship with many of his col-
leagues. He was an integral
part of the “First Manhattan
Family” and his infectious
smile, perseverance and “can
do” attitude will be missed.
We offer our condolences to
Dick's daughters, Jennifer
and Merrie, and to his family
and friends.
ROBERTS—Suzanne F.
The entire University of
Pennsylvania community is
profoundly saddened by the
passing of Suzanne Roberts,
beloved friend, Penn parent
and grandparent, and widow
of distinguished alumnus and
Simon, Laura Lee
Tavitian, Aso
Uram, Jacob
Vartanian, Lia
Walsh, Nora Mae
Watts, Lillian
Wolchek, Ellen
Zimmerman, Gloria
longtime Penn Medicine
Board member Ralph J.
Roberts. Suzanne was a wo-
man of many talents - as an
actress, broadcaster, and
educator - and was devoted
to having a positive impact
on the world. Suzanne's pas-
sion and commitment to the
arts and theatre had an inde-
lible impact on Philadelphia
and beyond, highlighted by
the magnificent presence of
the Suzanne Roberts Theatre
on the Avenue of the Arts. At
Penn, the Roberts family
created a legacy of life and
hope for cancer patients in
the Philadelphia area and be-
yond, with their landmark gift
which helped create the
Roberts Proton Therapy Cen-
ter, the largest and most inte-
grated facility in the world for
proton therapy. Suzanne and
the Roberts family also posi-
tively impacted innumerable
lives with their thoughtful phi-
lanthropy supporting faculty
at the Perelman School of
Medicine and scholarships
for Wharton undergraduates.
On behalf of our faculty, stu-
dents, and staff, and the
countless patients treated at
the Roberts Proton Therapy
Center, we extend our deep-
est sympathy to the entire
Roberts family.
David L. Cohen, Chair,
Board of Trustees
Andrew R. Heyer, Chair,
Penn Medicine Board
Amy Gutmann, President
J. Larry Jameson,
Executive Vice President,
University of Pennsylvania
for the Health System
and Dean,
Perelman School of Medicine
Kevin B. Mahoney, CEO,
University of Pennsylvania
Health System
ROTH—Phyllis.
On April 20, 2020, Phyllis Roth,
nee Markowitz (Brooklyn na-
tive), beloved wife of the late
David. Devoted mother of
Amy (Diana), Eric (Anne)
and Susan (Charles). Cher-
ished grandmother of Aaron,
Nathaniel, Isla and Indira.
Elegant, passionate; longtime
social worker, caregiver, ad-
vocate, music and art lover,
devoted friend and listener.
Celebration of life to be held
later. Memorial donations
may be made to the Iris
Music Project or Doctors
Without Borders.
www.sagelbloomfield.com
SIMON—Laura Lee,
90. Lifelong advocate for
children and families, foun-
der and longtime Chair of
CT Commission on Children,
Chair of CT Public Television,
advisor extraordinaire to
Stepping Stones Museum for
Children, leader of many oth-
er organizations in Westport
(home for 60 years) and
around Connecticut. She died
April 22 in White Plains, fol-
lowing a long decline. Prede-
ceased by John, her devoted
husband of 65 years. Survived
by her children, Terri, James
and Andrew Simon, her
brother, Michael Reeder, sev-
en grandchildren and a great-
granddaughter.
TAVITIAN—Aso O.
Aso O. Tavitian passed away
on April 21, 2020 after his cou-
rageous battle with cancer
with his loving wife, Isabella
Meisinger at his side. Mr.
Tavitian was born in Sofia,
Bulgaria. In 1959, after leaving
Communist Bulgaria, he ar-
rived in Beirut, Lebanon. Af-
ter learning English from
an Armenian English High
School teacher in Beirut, he
was accepted at Haigazian
College on a full scholarship
but couldn't afford his living
expenses and thought he
would not be able to pursue
his education when an anony-
mous benefactor altered his
life. Mr. Tavitian later learned
that his English teacher of
minimal means made his
education possible. This act
of generosity and kindness is
one that he never forgot.
Throughout his life's journey,
Mr. Tavitian was a model of
integrity and decency. He ap-
proached every part of life
with intellectual rigor but also
with enthusiasm and a gene-
rosity of spirit. He was pas-
sionate about the arts and his
heritage. He was loved and
respected by all who knew
him. Mr. Tavitian attended
Columbia University and gra-
duated in 1965 with a Master
of Science degree in Nuclear
Engineering and in 1969, he
co-founded Syncsort, Inc. and
was its CEO from 1975 until
April of 2008 and continued to
be involved with Syncsort at
the Board level until 2015. In
1995, he established and fund-
ed the Tavitian Foundation
where his generosity and
passions flourished. Always
keeping his heritage close to
his heart, he strived to streng-
then the governance of the
Republic of Armenia as well
as providing educational op-
portunities for individuals of
Armenian ethnicity. Mr. Tavi-
tian supported research on
issues of significance for a
globalized world and his love
of the arts. His Foundation's
work on strengthening the
governance of the Republic
of Armenia includes the orga-
nization of a series of six-
month special training pro-
grams for mid-level em-
ployees in various Armenian
Ministries and Governmental
Institutions. These programs
have been designed in con-
junction with the faculty of
the Fletcher School of Law
and International Diplomacy
and are taught at Fletcher.
The pride in his work could
not be more evident than
when attending the student
graduations. There have
been close to 350 graduates
of this program, Tavitian
Scholars. Mr. Tavitian's ef-
forts have been recognized
by the government of Arme-
nia through the awarding of
the Order of Honor on Octo-
ber 7, 2017 as well as the
Prime Minister's Medal in
2012. Tavitian has also been
awarded Honorary Docto-
rates from Tufts University
and Yerevan State Universi-
ty. Mr. Tavitian was a mem-
ber of the Council on Foreign
Relations, the Board of
Trustees of the Carnegie En-
dowment for International
Peace, the Board of Trustees
of the Frick Museum in New
York, NY and the Board
of Trustees of the Clark
Museum in Williamstown,
MA. He is survived by his lov-
ing wife, Isabella Meisinger,
his stepdaughter, Natalie
Barnett (Forrest Barnett) and
granddaughter, Annika and
his cousins, Anahid Tatcheva,
Anahid Hatzigeorgiou (Aris-
totle Hatzigeorgiou), his God-
sons, Aris Hatzigeorgiou and
Athan Hatzigeorgiou and his
cousin, Philippe Ohanessian
(Sylvia Ohanessian) and Jean
Philippe Ohanessian. He was
predeceased by his parents,
Ohanes Garabed Tavitian
and Armeno Mavi Tavitian
and brother, Henry O.
Tavitian and first wife, Arlene
Tavitian. A private service
will be held for immediate fa-
mily members and a memor-
ial service will be planned at a
future date. In lieu of flowers,
donations can be made to
The American Red Cross
towards the Coronavirus
Outbreak fund:
https://www.redcross.org/
TAVITIAN—Aso O.
It is with immense sadness
that The Frick Collection
shares the news of the recent
passing of its longtime board
member, dedicated advo-
cate, and dear friend Aso O.
Tavitian. A singularly gene-
rous and kind man, Aso led
an inspiring life. Born in Bul-
garia of Armenian descent,
he immigrated to New York
in 1961. After receiving a
master's degree from Colum-
bia University in nuclear en-
gineering, he went on to co-
found Syncsort, a pioneering
software company. Achiev-
ing tremendous success as a
businessman, he devoted
himself to philanthropic
causes, eventually establish-
ing the Tavitian Foundation,
which over the years has sup-
ported various cultural and
higher education institutions.
He was most passionate
about education, art, humani-
ties, and supporting those of
Armenian heritage, with
whom he felt inherent kin-
ship. He became a member
of The Frick Collection in 2005
and joined its Board of
Trustees in 2008. An excep-
tionally dedicated and in-
volved board member, Aso
served as the Board's Vice
Chair, the Chair of its Com-
mittee on Art Acquisitions,
and as a member of several
other committees. Addition-
ally, he supported a number
of important museum initia-
tives, including helping to
fund the construction of the
Portico Gallery, in 2012. He
also generously supported
numerous special exhibitions.
Aso was a celebrated collec-
tor whose discerning eye
placed him among some of
the world's most accom-
plished connoisseurs. He was
especially interested in Old
Master paintings, sculpture
from the Renaissance
through the late eighteenth
century, English furniture,
and Persian rugs. He gene-
rously lent his best pieces to
museum exhibitions not only
at the Frick, but to institutions
around the world. He will be
fondly remembered for his
generosity, intelligence, lead-
ership, and - perhaps most
importantly - his kindness. On
behalf of the Board and staff
of The Frick Collection, we
extend our heartfelt con-
dolences to Isabella Meisin-
ger, his family, and all who
knew and loved him.
Elizabeth M. Eveillard,
Chair, Board of Trustees
Ian Wardropper,
Anna-Maria and
Stephen Kellen Director
URAM—Jacob Michael,
known to his family and le-
gion of friends as Jack,
passed away peacefully in
hospice in Delray, FL on April
17th after a long illness. He
loved life, he loved to laugh
and he loved his W. Village
neighborhood, particularly
Sevilla on Charles St. His spir-
it will be sorely missed by all
who knew him. He is survived
by his wife, Dr. Gwen Koro-
vin. He was interred next to
his parents on April 21st. A
memorial service will be held
at a later date.
VARTANIAN—Lia Nicol.
October 30, 1970 - April 19,
2020, from Nyack, NY. Lia has
left an indelible mark on the
hearts and lives of all those
who had the privilege of
knowing her. Virtual tribute
wall at:
www.wymanfisher.com
WALSH—Nora Mae
(nee Moran),
beloved wife, Mom and Gran-
ny, entered heaven peaceful-
ly on April 22, 2020. She was
born to James and Delia on
June 25, 1926 in the Moran
farm home in Knock, County
Mayo, Ireland. Throughout
her life, Nora was strong,
fearless and good-natured.
She met each of life's challen-
ges with her Irish practicality,
and celebrated its gifts with
measured joy and gratitude.
She loved quietly but fiercely,
and always led by example.
In 1946, Nora made a solo
voyage across the Atlantic to
NYC. She was always a proud
Irishwoman, and she became
an even prouder American.
Nora married Michael Peter
Walsh, a Mayo man, in 1950.
Together, they raised six
daughters and two sons in
Queens, NY until Mike's
death in 1978. With scant for-
mal education and widowed
at 51, Nora saw to completion
her and Mike's goal of higher
education for their eight
children. She worked as a
waitress, supporting and
guiding her children with un-
failing faith, intuitive wisdom
and incredible emotional and
physical strength. She was of-
ten seen and heard on the
sidelines cheering (or in-
structing the referees) at
CYO, high school and college
games as her children and
grandchildren played basket-
ball and many other sports.
She proudly watched as they
starred in plays, performed in
music recitals, won awards,
and graduated from colleges,
as well as graduate, medical
and law schools. Her life was
directed by an unwavering
faith: she was a daily commu-
nicant who prayed the rosa-
ry. Family was everything to
Nora; as her children and
grandchildren married, she
lovingly welcomed the new
in-laws and their families, and
rejoiced at the ever-growing
numbers at Walsh family ce-
lebrations. She will be re-
membered for preparing de-
licious Sunday dinners and
large feasts where there was
always room for one more at
the table. Nora is survived by
her eight bereft, but eternally
grateful, children and their
spouses, Katie Winslade
(Bill), Bernadette Harrison
(Jim), Noreen DiPrisco (Joe),
Patricia Hauser (Craig), Pau-
line Montegari (Dave), Jim-
my Walsh (Dawn), John
Walsh (Rosemary), and Hele-
na Gunther (Tony). A third
son Michael died in 1959, 4
months after birth. Nora, or
Granny, as she was fondly
known, will be missed and lo-
vingly remembered by her 34
devoted grandchildren and
36 great-grandchildren. Her
three brothers, Tommy, Jay
and Martin predeceased her,
and her sisters Delia McDon-
nell and Anne King survive
her, as do numerous nieces
and nephews in the US, Ire-
land, England and Canada.
Nora was a beautiful and ele-
gant woman who lived her
life with grace and kindness.
She has left an enduring im-
print on the lives of not only
her family but on all who had
the privilege of knowing her.
Nora's life will be celebrated
at a future date. In lieu of
flowers, the family requests
that Nora's memory be ho-
nored by donations to “Out-
reach for the Poor” at the
Church of Saint Francis of
Assisi, 135 W. 31st Street New
York, NY 10001.
https://giving.parishsoft.com
/App/Giving/stf135249
WATTS—Lillian A.,
94, of Stamford, CT passed
away April 23, 2020, peaceful-
ly at home with family by
her side. Lillian was pre-
deceased by her husband of
62 years, Duane E. Watts, and
is survived by daughters El-
len Watts of Wellesley, MA,
Janet Watts of Dallas, TX and
Judy Watts Wilson of Rye,
NY and four loving grand-
children.
WOLCHEK—Ellen,
died peacefully on 16th April
2020 at her home in Millbrook,
New York. Beloved daughter
of Martha and Donald, sister
of Andrew, aunt of Isabelle
and Christopher, and much
missed by her aunt, Daria Sa-
lusbury, and cousin, Alexan-
der Salusbury. A private ser-
vice will be held after the end
of the pandemic.
ZIMMERMAN—Gloria
Barrow,
passed away at White Plains
Hospital in White Plains, NY
on April 18, 2020. She was 97
years of age. The cause of
death was complications
from Coronavirus. For 68
years she was the loving wife
of the late Sidney P. Zimmer-
man M.D. She was an ever-
present force in the life of her
three children and their fami-
lies, Neal (Sherrie), Beth Post
(Peter) and Amy. She was
supportive and giving to her
beloved grandchildren, Aa-
ron (Kimberly) and Rachel
Zimmerman, Ted (Jenna)
and Jason (Merrie) Post, and
Naomi Feiguine. She was
fortunate to be there to
welcome eight great-grand-
children and watch them
grow and thrive. She exem-
plified the women of the
greatest generation always
helping and working for oth-
ers with little regard for per-
sonal glory. Gloria was a
sportswoman and champion
golfer, elegant entertainer
and cook, lover of the arts —
opera, ballet and fine arts.
Throughout her life she was a
beautiful human being inside
and out and will be remem-
bered lovingly in the hearts of
friends and family. A memor-
ial service will be held at a la-
ter date. Memorial Contribu-
tions may be made to White
Plains Hospital or to the hos-
pital's COVID-19 Relief Fund.
In Memoriam
GOLDSTEIN—Andrew
Justin.
Dec. 15, 1992 - April 23, 2018
Two years without you and
our hearts remain shattered,
little man. The love we have
for you is eternal. Mommy,
Daddy, Ian and Arielle, twin
Alyssa, Stephanie, and all
those who knew and remem-
ber you. I believe you and I
could never really say good-
bye, Wherever you may be,
I'll look up and see, someone
in the dark for me.
STARK ROBLEDO—Lynne.
Born July 15, 1938. Died April
24, 2019. Mother to Francesca
Ana Robledo, MSW from
Hunter College.
B16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
John Pfahl, Who Added
Oddities to Photographs
Of Landscapes, Dies at 81
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
John Pfahl, an inventive land-
scape photographer renowned for
manipulating the natural world by
inserting into it objects like rope,
foil, lace, tape and, once, a pie pan,
died on April 15 in Buffalo, N.Y. He
was 81.
His sister-in-law, Cathy Pfahl,
said that the cause was the new
coronavirus, but that he had also
had heart problems, mild demen-
tia and Parkinson’s disease.
Mr. Pfahl developed a reputa-
tion as a masterly if quirky land-
scape photographer over more
than 40 years. In addition to his
manipulations, he found beauty in
peculiar vistas like the belching
smoke of a coke plant in Lack-
awanna, N.Y., the rotting fruit and
vegetables of his compost pile,
and a stately hill of road salt — of-
ten as statements about the envi-
ronmental impact of industrializa-
tion.
“I want to make pictures that
SHARON CANTILLON/BUFFALO NEWS
John Pfahl in 2007.
He brought quirky
playfulness and visual
puns to his work.
work on a more mysterious level,
that approach the truth by a more
circuitous route,” he wrote in an
artist’s statement on his website.
In “Altered Landscapes,” a se-
ries of predigital manipulated
photos that Mr. Pfahl shot in the
1970s, he brought playfulness and
visual pun-making to his work. In
“Triangle, Bermuda,” he laid a tri-
angle of black string that led from
a beach in Bermuda to the waters
of the Atlantic Ocean.
In another landscape, he paro-
died Ansel Adams’s famous pho-
tograph “Moonrise, Hernandez,
New Mexico,” by placing a pie pan
among boulders at Capitol Reef
National Park in Utah. The pan
appears to be the same size and of
similar brightness as the distant
moon directly above it. He called
the picture “Moonrise Over Pie
Pan.”
Some of his photographs may
seem whimsical, but there was se-
rious conceptual rationale and in-
tricate mathematical calculations
behind his image tinkering.
“It’s a witty reflection on how
we tend to conflate pictures of the
natural world with the natural
world itself,” said Lisa Hostetler,
the curator in charge of the
George Eastman Museum in
Rochester, N.Y., which has a large
collection of Mr. Pfahl’s work. (He
was a longtime trustee there.)
By inserting mundane objects
into landscapes, Ms. Hostetler
added, Mr. Pfahl was making a
Jaroslava Brychtova, 95, Sculptor Who Found New Ways to Meld Glass, Form and Light
By STEVEN KURUTZ
Jaroslava Brychtova, an inter-
nationally acclaimed Czech artist
who made large-scale glass sculp-
tures with her husband and col-
laborator, Stanislav Libensky, pio-
neering new ways to work with
glass, form and light, died on April
8 in Jablonec nad Nisou, a town in
the Czech Republic. She was 95.
Her death, from what was
thought to be heart failure, was
confirmed by Katya Heller, whose
Heller Gallery in Manhattan rep-
resents the couple.
From the late 1950s until 2002,
when Mr. Libensky died, Ms.
Brychtova and her husband creat-
ed an ambitious body of work that
could be likened more to painting,
sculpture and architecture than to
something that rests on a table-
top. Some works topped 13 tons
and towered 14 feet. Many fea-
tured negative space, like cuts, to
allow light to penetrate. The best
of them merged art and science
through the material of colored
glass to profound effect.
“Red Pyramid” (1993), one of
several works by the couple in the
permanent collection of the Cor-
ning Museum of Glass in Corning,
N.Y., is a simple pyramidal shape,
almost three feet tall, that looks to
be glowing dramatically from
within. It was created using a
technique the artists developed
called mold melting, whereby
chunks of glass are placed in
molds and left to slowly melt in-
side a kiln.
“When you stand in front of one
of their works, you feel the power
they brought to it,” said Susie J.
Silbert, curator of postwar and
contemporary glass at the Cor-
ning Museum. “The forms are so
point about how cameras distort
three-dimensional space. “He was
showing us that while we believe
in a picture, it looks real, it looks
normal, but it’s actually false,” she
said.
Decades later, he embraced dig-
ital technology to alter pictures of
pastoral scenes in the British
Isles.
John Alfred Pfahl was born on
Feb. 17, 1939, in Manhattan and
raised in Wanaque, N.J., where he
grew up hiking local wilderness
trails, an early introduction to the
natural world. His father, Hans,
was a floor manager for a series of
factories, and his mother, Anna
(Gerhardt) Pfahl, was a home-
maker. Both were German immi-
grants.
Mr. Pfahl graduated with a
bachelor of fine arts degree in 1961
from the Syracuse University
School of Art, where he had ma-
jored in advertising but found his
career path when he took elective
courses in photography.
After two years in the Army in
an engineering battalion at Fort
Belvoir, Va., he worked as an as-
sistant to Paul Elfenbein, an ad-
vertising photographer in Man-
hattan, then moved to Los Ange-
les to assist Herbert Bruce Cross,
an architectural photographer.
Returning to Syracuse Univer-
sity, he earned a master’s degree
in color photography in 1968. Soon
after, he was hired to teach pho-
tography at the Rochester Insti-
tute Technology, where he re-
mained until 1985, giving him time
to pursue photography full-time.
Mr. Pfahl did not ignore magnif-
icent landscapes, like waterfalls,
but he often photographed them
within the context of the industri-
alization that sometimes
shrouded their beauty.
In the 1980s, not long after the
Three Mile Island nuclear acci-
dent in Pennsylvania, he pho-
tographed the picturesque set-
tings where power companies of-
ten built nuclear plants, dams and
generators. He invariably set the
power plants in the far reaches of
the pictures, letting their lush sur-
roundings dominate.
“For me, power plants in the
natural landscape represent only
the most extreme example of
man’s willful domination over the
wilderness,” Mr. Pfahl wrote. “It is
the arena where the needs and
ambitions of an ever-expanding
population collide most forcefully
with the finite resources of na-
ture.”
He also found inspiration closer
to home: the decaying watermel-
on rinds, pumpkin shreds, pears,
fennel and oranges in his compost
pile, which he called a “daybook of
both memorable and mundane
meals that grace my table.”
When the pictures, “From the
Very Rich Hours of a Compost
Pile,” were exhibited at the Nina
Freudenheim Gallery in Buffalo in
1995, Richard Huntington, the art
critic of The Buffalo News,
praised them for displaying un-
erring composition and “vivid de-
piction of rot.”
“Is nothing ever amiss in a John
Pfahl photograph?” Mr. Hunting-
ton wrote. “His vision is so con-
trolled, so precise, that I suspect
that when the world sees him
coming it quickly rearranges it-
VIA THE CORNING MUSEUM OF GLASS
Jaroslava Brychtova made
massive sculptures with her
husband, Stanislav Libensky,
including “Head I,” above, and
“Red Pyramid,” right.
bold, so strong, and the glass is so
expressive.”
Mr. Libensky made the paint-
ings and drawings, while Ms.
Brychtova translated and inter-
preted his designs into three di-
mensions, using clay models to
perfect the shapes and surfaces.
She played another essential
role behind the scenes: She was in
charge of the architectural glass
studio where their work was
produced, in her hometown,
Zelezny Brod. While Mr. Libensky
spent weekdays in Prague teach-
ing at the Academy of Decorative
Arts, Ms. Brychtova pushed the
studio workers under her charge
to achieve their vision.
“The sheer will and determina-
tion she had to get this all done is
self, getting all the various parts in
order, just like someone does with
the house when they see an hon-
ored guest coming up the walk-
way.”
remarkable,” Ms. Heller said.
“Particularly when you see the
scale of these pieces.”
In a documentary film about the
couple, “The Space of Light,” Ms.
Brychtova acknowledged that she
was “pretty tough within the fac-
tory environment,” adding, “I
wasn’t very popular because I
was always striving for the best.”
She and her husband sought to
make glass sculpture that could
stand alone without a pedestal.
They achieved it with the Vest-
ments, a series made in the late
1990s. On its website, the Metro-
politan Museum of Art in New
York, which owns “Vestment II”
(1997), described the sculpture, of
muted gray glass, as “reminiscent
of a liturgical garment,” appearing
He found inspiration, too, in
piles of leaves, a sand pit, a hill
filled with demolition material
and a tire farm near his home. Ad-
ams may have had the Sierras but,
VIA THE CORNING MUSEUM OF GLASS
“opaque and grandiose but at
other times almost weightless.”
Though admirers and critics fo-
cused on the massiveness of her
work, Ms. Brychtova insisted in
the documentary that scale was
not the biggest challenge. “It’s
ideas that are hard to get to, not
size,” she said.
Jaroslava Brychtova was born
on July 18, 1924, to artistic parents.
Her mother, Anna Pekarkova, cre-
ated hand-woven textiles. Her fa-
ther, Jaroslav Brychta, was a
sculptor and glassmaker who also
founded a local school that taught
glassmaking techniques as well
as design, chemistry and technol-
ogy. He was a major influence on
her life.
Ms. Brychtova followed her fa-
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN PFAHL/JANET BORDEN GALLERY
as Mr. Pfahl wrote, he had these
modest mountains to call his own.
“I try to imbue these piles of
raw and recycled materials,
through judicious use of light, at-
CTK/ALAMY
Ms. Brychtova in 2014.
Some of her works
topped 13 tons and
towered 14 feet.
ther into the arts, studying sculp-
ture at the Academy of Arts, Ar-
chitecture and Design and at the
Academy of Fine Arts, both in
Prague, before returning to
Zelezny Brod, a small town in
north Bohemia with centuries-old
glassmaking tradition. She spent
nearly all her life there.
It was in Zelezny Brod, in the
early 1950s, that Ms. Brychtova
met Mr. Libensky, who was the di-
rector of the glass school and, like
her, married at the time. They di-
vorced their spouses, causing a
minor scandal, and embarked on
the fruitful partnership that first
drew notice at the 1958 World’s
Fair in Brussels, where they
showed colored glass blocks with
reliefs of wild animals.
Clockwise from left: “Big Dip-
per,” part of Mr. Pfahl’s “Al-
tered Landscapes” series in the
1970s; “Triangle, Bermuda.
August 1975”; “Trojan Nuclear
Plant, Columbia River, Ore-
gon,” 1982; and “Moonrise
over Pie Pan,” his parody of an
Ansel Adams photograph.
mosphere and scale, with the maj-
esty of mountains I recall from
summers in the Rockies and the
Alps,” he wrote.
Mr. Pfahl, who died in a Buffalo
hospital, is survived by his wife,
Bonnie Gordon, an artist and a for-
mer professor of design at Buffalo
State College whom he married in
a roadside chapel in Albuquerque,
N.M., and a brother, Walter.
In the 1970s, Mr. Pfahl traveled
around the United States asking
strangers to let him shoot land-
scapes from inside their homes.
Many accommodated him, in-
trigued by his idiosyncratic vision.
He would then take down their
curtains, wash their windows and
move their furniture for a series
that he called “Picture Windows.”
“I liked the idea that my photo-
graphic vantage points were not
solely determined by myself,” he
wrote. “They were predetermined
by others, sometimes years earli-
er, and patiently waited for me to
discover them.”
In Communist Czechoslovakia,
where the couple made their semi-
nal work, artists who might have
otherwise been censored could
hide out in the “minor” art of glass
while pursuing ideas like abstrac-
tion. The couple’s work was un-
derwritten by the state, at least
initially, and they exhibited at
World Expos in Montreal in 1967
and Osaka, Japan, in 1970.
They also created many public
works in the Czech Republic, in-
cluding the facade of the National
Theater and the stained-glass
windows for St. Vitus Cathedral,
both in Prague, as well as a relief
inside the striking Jested Tower.
After the 1968 Soviet-led inva-
sion of Czechoslovakia, the Com-
munists cracked down on artists.
Ms. Brychtova and Mr. Libensky
were expelled from the party and
forbidden to travel abroad togeth-
er for a time.
Over the decades, as their inter-
national reputation grew and
their work was displayed at the
Met and the Victoria & Albert Mu-
seum in London, a younger gener-
ation of female glass artists drew
inspiration from Ms. Brychtova.
She is survived by two sons, Ja-
roslav and Milos Zahradnik, and a
daughter, Alena Vavrikova, all
from her first marriage.
A stylish woman with a distinc-
tive mop top of gray hair, Ms.
Brychtova retained an “age-defy-
ing curiosity” about art and cul-
ture to the end of her life, Ms.
Heller said. But she stopped mak-
ing glass works after the death of
Mr. Libensky, telling the Czech
News Agency on the occasion of
her 90th birthday: “It is impossi-
ble without Stanislav. I am used to
working in a couple. Without him,
it just isn’t right.”
4 FILM REVIEW 6 FILM 8-9 FOR KIDS

The Beastie Boys Escaping into Pit your powers

share memories musicals that are of perception
and the mic. s’wonderful. against some
BY A.O. SCOT T BY MANOHLA DARGIS tricky illusions.

NEWS CRITICISM FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 C1

N

VATICAN MUSEUMS

Museum Surfing
A virtual tour of Raphael’s rooms, above, awaits on the Vatican Museums’ website. An in-depth guide to the
best online presentations from the world’s leading art palaces and picture galleries is on Pages 12 and 13.
C2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Make Time to Listen, Look and Laugh

Housebound? There
are performances that
can transport the
cultural patron who is
sheltering in place.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

To a Modernist Mother
When the saxophonist and composer Steve
Lehman realized he wouldn’t be able to
travel from Los Angeles to Brooklyn for his
mother’s 80th birthday this month, he de-
cided to send her a sonic greeting instead.
Recording in his car during breaks from
home schooling his children, Lehman
produced an EP of solos, “Xenakis and the
Valedictorian.”
Appropriately, when Lehman was a child,
his mother, Sheila, introduced him to ex-
perimental composers like Iannis Xenakis.
(She played the composer’s “Bohor” at an
early haunted-house party.) Now, her son
has repaid her aesthetic modernism in turn.
Lehman’s regular label, Pi Recordings, is
releasing his short but stirring EP on Fri-
day as part of a campaign to raise money for
musicians who have lost income because of
the pandemic. The post-bop tradition is in
evidence most prominently on the track “2
Gears/13 Satellites.”
Equally tantalizing are the soundscape
miniatures, full of breathy, all-acoustic ex-
tended techniques. The “I can’t believe it’s
not electronically manipulated” timbres of
a track like “Ecstatics” reveal how much the
saxophonist has to offer the world of con-
temporary classical composition. (I was en-
tranced by one of Lehman’s orchestral
works during a concert by the American
Composers Orchestra at Zankel Hall in
2018.)
When placed next to a Lehman chamber
composition like “La Vida es Sueño,” which
the Grossman Ensemble premiered in
June, this new EP makes me eager to find
out how Lehman’s solo-performance prac-
tice will next make its influence heard in
classical recital halls.
SETH COLTER WALLS
POP
Minecraft Is a Stage
Over the past several weeks, musicians
across genres have had to adapt from the
stage to the screen, modifying their acts to
comply with the limitations of their web-
cams. Though some artists have managed
the transition with greater success (and au-
dio quality) than others, few are better pre-
pared than 100 gecs — a duo who made their
“live” debut in 2018 at Coalchella, an en-
tirely virtual music festival.
The masterminds behind 100 gecs, Dylan
Brady and Laura Les, have gone on to per-
form their brand of spastic noise pop at real-
life events, including notable shows at
N.Y.U.’s Kimmel Center and at Elsewhere,
in Brooklyn, last year. But on Friday, they’ll
return to their digital roots for Square Gar-
den, a festival they have organized to sup-
port hunger relief efforts. Like Coalchella,
the event will be staged in Minecraft, a
Lego-style, multiplayer video game in
which worlds are constructed from virtual
block-shaped materials.
Square Garden’s lineup features a num-
ber of Brady and Les’s previous collabora-
tors, including the avant-pop star Charli
XCX and the twee indie band Kero Kero Bo-
nito, both of whom contributed to a recent
remix of the 100 gecs song “ringtone.” Cash-
mere Cat will also appear for a collaborative
set with the pop producer Benny Blanco.
The free festival begins on Friday at 6
p.m. (donations will be accepted for Feed-
ing America). Instructions on how to join
through the Java version of Minecraft are
available at 100 gecs’s website; those who
don’t have the video game can watch the
event’s live stream on YouTube or Twitch.
OLIVIA HORN
KIDS
Springtime Silliness
Clementine, the resourceful heroine of a
new puppet show, escapes from her
cramped city apartment to a fun-filled
Rockefeller Center just by wishing. Right
now, many young New Yorkers would prob-
ably like to join her. Teleporting isn’t likely,
but they can enjoy the next-best thing: a
virtual Rockefeller Center festival with
Clementine and lots of company.
That event is Spring Sunday, a series fea-
turing art making, music, puppetry and
other activities. The programs, which
would normally happen on the center’s
plaza, have taken place every week since
March 29 on YouTube, Instagram and Twit-
ter. (Many of the segments remain online.)
At 11 a.m. on Sunday, the series will post
its final videos. Artists from the Art Produc-
tion Fund are leading two projects: Angel-
NICOLE FARA SILVER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
ANTHONY SERTEL DEAN
From top: John D. Rockefeller
Jr. (well, a puppet version)
and Clementine in a
Puppetsburg show; the
saxophonist Steve Lehman;
and Lee LeBreton, left, and
Laura Killeen in “The Infinite
Wrench.”
ica Hicks will teach how to sculpt papier-
mâché “helping hands,” and LaKela Brown
will show how to fashion whimsical crea-
tures from flour-based clay. Paper Source
has planned a printmaking workshop using
stamps cut from recycled cardboard, and
the Shop at NBC Studios will help little
painters recreate the network’s peacock
symbol.
The Rock and Roll Playhouse is offering a
music-and-movement workshop focused on
the Lorax, Dr. Seuss’s defender of trees
(Wednesday was Earth Day), and a pop
concert of color-themed tunes.
And don’t miss Clementine. She stars in
“Rockefeller Center, Heart of New York,”
the latest production from the Brooklyn-
based troupe Puppetsburg. It will immerse
her — and young audiences — in the site’s
history and design through encounters with
the Greek goddess Athena and John D.
Rockefeller Jr. Now that’s an adventure.
LAUREL GRAEBER
COMEDY
Taking His ‘Act’ Home
Introducing himself at the 2017 White
House Correspondents’ Association dinner
as a correspondent for “The Daily Show” on
Comedy Central, Hasan Minhaj jokingly ex-
plained the network to his audience: “It’s
basically an internship for Netflix.” A month
later, Minhaj’s first one-hander, “Homecom-
ing King,” premiered on that streaming
platform, followed by his own talk show,
“Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj,” in Octo-
ber 2018.
By now, Minhaj should be midway
through the sixth “volume” of “Patriot Act”
episodes and ready to make his second
headlining appearance at the correspon-
dents’ dinner this weekend. Of course, all of
that is on hold because of the pandemic.
Instead, he’s sheltering in place with his
wife, Beena Patel; their 2-year-old daugh-
ter and their infant son; and his mother-in-
law. Like many talk-show comedians, Min-
haj has taken his show home with weekly
episodes of “Hasan . . . From a Distance,”
which are available on the YouTube channel
for “Patriot Act.” As his wife holds the cam-
era, Minhaj shows off the work spaces he
has set up in their utility room and their
walk-in closet and tries exercise routines
using household items and his daughter.
These days of quarantine not only give us
a glimpse into Minhaj’s domestic life, they
also offer ample opportunity to admire the
prescience of “Patriot Act.” On the show,
PUPPETSBURG
Minhaj has tackled thorny issues such as
what’s seen as the myriad misdeeds of the
cruise line industry, Amazon’s monopolistic
practices and workplace abuses, and the
problems with relying on billionaire philan-
thropy. The episode on Amazon even in-
cludes a second topic exploring voter sup-
pression, with Minhaj offering this: “Quick
piece of advice: Don’t show up to your
polling place wearing a mask.” OK, so may-
be that bit needs an update.
SEAN L. McCARTHY
THEATER
Podcasts for Sanity’s Sake
Just about every weekend for the last three
years the New York Neo-Futurists have
hosted “The Infinite Wrench,” a late-night
series in which two-minute plays were per-
formed for a live audience — the Neos’ way
of engaging with the thrill and immediacy of
the live arts.
On what would have been their 773rd
consecutive performance (including the
show’s predecessor), the Neos found them-
selves quarantined at home, with nothing
but the resources they had on hand to cre-
ate their art.
They used their limitless imaginations to
concoct “Hit Play,” a theatrical podcast
comprising “audio experiments,” presented
in two weekly episodes (released each
weekend to stave off severe “Wrench” with-
drawal). They are available free on iTunes;
a subscription to the group’s Patreon chan-
nel provides access to bonus goodies like
video plays.
“We are who we are, we are doing what
we are doing, we are where we are, and the
time is now,” they say at the top of each
episode. It’s their motto, but it also serves as
an appropriate mantra for a time when we
all wish we could be elsewhere, doing some-
thing different.
The podcast is a treasure chest that in-
cludes guided walks through New York
neighborhoods accompanied by an Ala-
bama Shakes album, a swoon-worthy rap in
which the endearing Shelton Lindsay pays
tribute to polyamory, a crime drama featur-
ing Cecil Baldwin, and a prayer-like essay in
which we’re instructed to “Think about
your biggest fear and shout it out right
now.”
Don’t be surprised if you follow the
strangely cathartic command. But notice
you’re also most likely grinning and ap-
plauding.
JOSE SOLÍS

This Weekend I Have . . .

BY MA R G A R E T LYO NS

. . . 40 Minutes, and I Like Spilling Secrets . . . an Hour, and I Like Excess . . . a Few Hours, and I Need Gentle Comedy
‘VIDA’ ‘PENNY DREADFUL: ‘ROSEHAVEN’
SUNDAY AT 9 P.M. CITY OF ANGELS’ SUNDANCENOW OR
ON STARZ SUNDAY AT 10:10 P.M. WITH A SUNDANCE
“Vida” returns for a ON SHOWTIME ADD-ON ON AMAZON
third and final season This spinoff of the hor- If you’ve burned
this weekend, with its ror series “Penny through shows like
requisite sex, social Dreadful” moves the “Schitt’s Creek,” “Gavin
strife and gossip. The festivities to 1938 Los and Stacey” and “New
sisters Lyn and Emma Angeles, where it takes Girl,” watch this three-
(played by Melissa on a little of everything: season Australian com-
Barrera and Mishel Nazis, Mexican mysti- edy. It’s about two BFFs,
Prada, far right) are STARZ cism, politics, racism, JUSTIN LUBIN/SHOWTIME Emma and Daniel SCOTT BRADSHAW/SUNDANCETV

kind of getting along, evangelism, demons, (played by Celia Pac-

which they both sense can’t last, and they deal with that in different
ways, Lyn by squeezing harder and Emma by pulling away. Charac-
ters on “Vida” are very up in one another’s business, which is one
reason this show is so good at rich, complicated interpersonal con-
flict: Everyone starts from a place of “You think you know me so
well, but you don’t.”
cop stuff, old cars that make funny noises, you name it. Natalie
Dormer (above) anchors the show as a creepy shape-shifter, and
she’s flanked by strong performances from Adam Rodriguez, Rory
Kinnear, Michael Gladis, Kerry Bishé and Nathan Lane among
others. It’s possible the show has bitten off more than it can chew,
but then again, demons can chew an awful lot.
quola and Luke McGregor, right, both of whom also created the
show), who live in rural Tasmania and work at Daniel’s mother’s
real estate agency. It’s a cozy goof-off show, where characters make
jokes for one another’s benefit, not the audience’s. “Before you go,
can you do one thing for me?” Emma asks when she has a cold.
“Can you watch a whole season of ‘Game of Thrones’ with me?”
Relatable.

Watching Sign up for our newsletter: nytimes.com/newsletters/watching

 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C3

VIA ROUND HOUSE THEATER

Playwrights Use Web Series for Structure

But the ‘Homebound’ scripts, about the
strange new present, should not be
considered plays, the artistic director says.
By LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES
If the political humor columnist Alexandra
Petri of The Washington Post could give her
pre-pandemic self a piece of advice, she
might suggest skipping the play she went to
write about in late February at the Conser-
vative Political Action Conference in Mary-
land.
“It was bad, and I was glad I got to say
that it was bad,” she said recently from
Washington.
But ever since a conference attendee
tested positive for the coronavirus, she has
been in lockdown at home, starting what
she called “a bonus week” earlier than most
people. So: probably not worth it, all in all.
“If I could go back to previous me,” she
said, “and be like, ‘Hey, listen, you won’t be
able to go have a respectful handshake with
your dad for, like, months — ’ ” She broke off
to explain, deadpan: “We’re not a big hug-
ging family, so I was trying to be realistic
within my time travel.”
Petri, who is also a playwright, was on the
phone to talk about writing the first episode
of “Homebound,” a free weekly web series
of 10-minute shorts from Round House The-
ater, in Bethesda, Md. Starting on YouTube
on Monday at 9 a.m., the series is about iso-
lating in the nation’s capital during the coro-
navirus shutdown — the company’s at-
tempt to give structure and meaning to the
worries, what-ifs and whipsaw mood
changes of the strange new present.
The project is also intended to provide at
least a bit of employment for artists at a
time when stage work has evaporated. Per-
formed by a cast of nine local actors who,
like the series’s design team, lost jobs when
Round House’s season screeched to a so-
cially distanced halt last month, “Home-
bound” will be written by a different Wash-
ington-area playwright each week and shot
by the actors in their homes on their phones
and tablets.
There is no showrunner and no pre-
ordained arc to the 10-episode series, which
will develop, relay style, over the course of
the spring, with each writer handing off to
the next. Assigned two actors, the writers
are free to use their own voices and lead the
story where they will, keeping an eye on
continuity and character development.
The progress of the pandemic will surely
influence the show’s shape, while its tone
may be as variable as the emotional tenor of
these lockdown days.
Is it theater, though? As companies with
darkened stages put productions online,
questions of form and medium have be-
come surprisingly contentious.
Petri, for one, thinks of her episode — a
comedy about the disembodied weirdness
of Zoom life and the solace of human con-
nection — “as fundamentally a 10-minute
play, but it happens to be set inside your
computer.” Round House’s artistic director,
Ryan Rilette, is adamant, though, that the
pieces that will make up “Homebound” are
not plays, and the series is not theater.
“You can’t actually capture the quality of
being with a group of people, breathing the
same air, listening to a story together,” he
said from his home in Potomac, Md.
“There’s just nothing that is really like that.
And so we’re not trying to replace that.”
Rather, Round House is trying to respond
to this destabilizing moment with immedi-
acy and artistry, using the tools it has to
maintain a connection with its audience.
But the internet, an unfamiliar perform-
ance medium for the company, has consid-
erable limitations.
While Rilette said he would like “Home-
bound” to attain the same quality level as
Round House’s stage work, he knows the
project’s make-do constraints might not al-
low that. So, with designers on hand to re-
fine the sound and visuals, he is aiming for
an aesthetic that feels like a slightly elevat-
ed version of homemade.
Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, who stars in the
series alongside Craig Wallace, likened the
whole undertaking to improv. This is, after
all, not what any of the participants thought
they would be doing with their spring and
early summer.
A resident artist at Round House since
2018, Ebrahimzadeh had expected to wrap
up his residency in productions of Charles
Mee’s “Big Love” and Rehana Lew Mirza’s
“Hate____.” Instead, he will perform solo in
his Washington apartment, where his part-
ner, Katrina Clark, also an actor, will likely
be drafted to help with filming, and where
their cats, Floyd and Marley, may or may
not deign to appear on camera.
It is all very much a work in progress,
with only a couple of scripts written so far.
When Petri filed her first draft last week,
Karen Zacarias, the Episode 2 playwright,
had just seven days to submit her own first
draft. And on it goes.
Each episode will get a table read on
Zoom, and then it’s up to the cast members
to videotape their scenes, keeping an eye on
details that aren’t usually their responsibil-
ity, like camera angles, lighting and sound.
Rilette and Nicole A. Watson, Round
House’s associate artistic director, will di-
rect the series, but neither they nor any
technical crew will be with the actors dur-
ing shooting.
“We’re putting a lot of pressure on the
performers,” the lighting designer, Harold
F. Burgess II, said from his home in Colum-
bia, Md., where he will do virtual walk-
throughs of each actor’s home to see what
lighting is available — natural and other-
wise — and whether he needs to supple-
ment it.
“That’s the thing I worry about most,” he
said, “that there’s just not enough light for
the video to read clearly so you can really
see people.”
The actors will get kits containing
tripods, selfie sticks and basic lighting
equipment, and the idea is to keep technical
elements simple. Still, how will the actors
accomplish so many additional tasks and
still do their primary job well?
“I have no idea,” Ebrahimzadeh said, and
laughed. “I think it really comes down to
trust, and embracing the chaos of it as op-
posed to fighting against it. Which is kind of
what I think we all have been tasked to do,
and I mean this broadly — the chaos of this
moment that we’re all living in.”
For Caleen Sinnette Jennings, the play-
wright who comes last in the lineup, with
Episode 10, that chaos has already been in-
structive. A professor of theater
at American University, she had A screenshot of Maboud
to learn recently how to teach Ebrahimzadeh rehearsing
her classes online, and the ex- the first episode of
perience surprised her. “Homebound.” The
“I’ve discovered how amaz- strangeness of life on
ing it is to see students prepare Zoom plays a role (cue
work and share work from their potato head).
living rooms — something I
could never have predicted,” she said from
her home in Rockville, Md. “I’m enjoying,
and tremendously moved by, the communi-
ty we’ve been able to create online.”
She expects something similar may be
afoot with “Homebound.”
“So will I miss live rehearsals?” she
asked. “Of course. That’s my heart, and the
screen will never replace that. But if I let my
curiosity outweigh the terror, and if I let my
sense of adventure outweigh my being fixed
on what theater has to be, it could be really
awesome.”
What “Homebound” will become by the
time it wraps up on June 29 is, by design,
unknown. It could be, Rilette said, that peo-
ple will be out and about in Washington by
then.
“I mean, I would love it,” he said, “if the
last episode of the series was our two resi-
dent artists who are the stars going to see a
Nats game together or something, you
know?”
However the series and the pandemic
morph by then, Jennings knows already
that one thing will be different about the
way she writes her part of it: the obligation
she feels, suddenly, to “hold the audience in
my heart as I create this.”
“I’m going through exactly what they’re
going through, in an enormous event that is
changing all of us,” she said. “The audience
will be much more in the room with me — in
my mental room, anyway.”

An Astonishing
Quilt of Sounds
More than a
remnant of the
1960s, ‘Hair’ is a
brilliant mixture of
American pop.

By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI
Recently, the co-chief theater critics of The
New York Times put together a musical cast
recording starter kit for those of us stuck at
home — 10 cast albums they’d take with
them to a desert island. We asked some of
their fellow critics to pick one cast album
each and extol its pleasures.
I first heard “Hair” as a teenager, because
an aunt had the original Broadway cast re-
cording on vinyl. I had no idea what the
story was about, and didn’t care — I just RALPH MORSE/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION, VIA GETTY IMAGES

loved the songs.

A scene from the Broadway
Since then I’ve listened to “Hair” more
musical “Hair: The
than all my other cast albums put together,
American Tribal Love-Rock
and possibly more than any other record,
Musical” in 1968.
period. I’ve listened to it on headphones at
home and on road trips, tinny car speakers
straining at high volume. I’ve listened to it
in order and on shuffle. I’ve listened to it in
while deep in absorbed concentration and
while yelling back the best lines.
I watched the 1979 Milos Forman film ad-
aptation and liked it well enough, but it was
seeing the show live for the first time — in
2008, at the Delacorte Theater — that se-
cured “Hair” in my personal pantheon.
Why It’s on Repeat
“Hair” is often said, somewhat accusingly,
to be stuck in the 1960s. But while it cer-
tainly is of that time, the show is also outside
of it, transcending the decades thanks to its
evocation of timeless themes of repression
and liberation, anger and joy. The score is
intricately crafted yet feels instinctive, re-
active, passionate.
“Hair” works so beautifully because it’s a
bit of a freak accident, resulting as it did
from the unlikely meeting of Galt MacDer-
mot, a seemingly strait-laced Canadian-
born composer who played jazz with inter-
polations of African music, with the lyricists
and book writers James Rado and Gerome
Ragni, who came from the East Village’s
wild theater scene.
Maybe it’s this conflagration that makes
“Hair” such a fabulous quilt of sounds and
influences crammed into tight numbers
(most are between two and three minutes,
many under one). Rock, pop, folk, soul — ev-
erything is in there. “I Believe in Love” feels
as if it has just walked out of the Brill Build-
ing; the horns on “Colored Spade” are
straight out of Stax, not Tin Pan Alley; “The
Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)” is an
ecstatic cry that’s pure gospel.
Every time I listen to the album on head-
phones, I discover new details. The rhythm
section alone, which was sourced from the
jazz world, is a treasure trove of inventivity:
The bassist Jimmy Lewis, who played in the
Count Basie Orchestra and with King Cur-
tis, came up with intoxicating lines (just lis-
ten to his work on “White Boys”) and feels
telepathically locked with drummer Idris
Muhammad.
Rado and Ragni also nailed a punchy lyri-
cal style, delighting in the percussive, al-
most sexual rhythm of words: “They’ll be
gaga at the go-go when they see me in my
toga” from the title song, or the rat-tat-tat of
“Ain’t Got No (Reprise),” which may well be
the most brutal list song to ever hit Broad-
way.
“Hair” is, at heart, a brilliant pop record.
It was the last Broadway cast album to hit
No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, in 1969
(“Hamilton” peaked at No. 3). That record-
ing is my go-to one, but the songs are so
sturdily built that they withstand almost
any treatment, from the magnificently in-
candescent (Nina Simone’s “Ain’t Got No, I
Got Life”) to the awesomely preposterous
(101 Strings’ easy-listening title track).
“Hair,” then as now, is a pure expression of
American popular music.
C4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Movies
A.O. SCOTT FILM REVIEW

APPLE TV PLUS

Goofing Around Boys. And while there is admiration and af-

fection on the faces of the middle-aged fans
flocking to the Kings Theater in Brooklyn in
“Beastie Boys Story,” there’s some envy-
Beastie Boys Story
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 59
minutes. On Apple TV Plus.
who the Beasties feel manipulated and ex-
ploited them — are mentioned.
The heart of the story is the second act
that began when the Beasties started tak-

As a Way of Life
Sharing tales of friendship, music, business and grief.
Background, the Beastie
Boys, from left, Michael
Diamond, Adam Horovitz
and Adam Yauch, back in
the day. Foreground,
Horovitz, left, and
Diamond in a scene from
“Beastie Boys Story,” a
documentary filmed by
Spike Jonze at the Kings
Theater in Brooklyn.
ONE THING Gen X kids used to do — other
people, too, of course, but I’m talking about
something specific — was hang around with
friends and listen to records. You might
have been skipping school, you might have
been smoking weed, but it could just as well
have been a Sunday afternoon with a two-
liter bottle of soda. Maybe someone had a
guitar or a drum kit you could mess around
with, and maybe after a while you even
started a band, but the main thing was be-
ing together, pooling your collective
teenage energies against the forces of bore-
dom and responsibility.
Eventually, most of us negotiated a truce
or surrendered outright. Not the Beastie
tinged nostalgia, too. As Adam Horovitz and
Michael Diamond, the surviving members
of the trio, explain from the theater’s stage
— in a live appearance directed and filmed
by their pal Spike Jonze — they turned goof-
ing around with friends and musical equip-
ment into a career and a way of life.
All these years later, they still seem kind
of amazed by the whole thing. The story
they tell — a streamlined version of the nar-
rative put forward in “Beastie Boys Book,”
their fat 2018 best seller — is full of fun and
also tinged with grief and regret. They did
some stupid things along the way, and were-
n’t always good to their friends, most nota-
bly Kate Schellenbach, an original member
of the group in the early 1980s (and later the
drummer for Luscious Jackson). She was
pushed aside when the Beasties teamed up
with the producer Rick Rubin and the mo-
gul-in-the-making Russell Simmons and
mutated from a punk band into an improba-
ble but hugely successful rap act.
Barely out of their teens, the Beastie
Boys — Ad-Rock (Horovitz), Mike D (Dia-
mond) and MCA (Adam Yauch) — found
themselves opening for Madonna, touring
with Run-DMC and dominating MTV with
“(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to
Party!),” a bit of anti-bro satire that became
a bro anthem. Brattiness became their
brand, and they found themselves trapped
in a collective persona and style of perform-
ance that turned impish irreverence into
obnoxiousness.
But then they grew up. With their chroni-
cle parceled into chapters interspersed with
old photographs and video clips, Horovitz
and Diamond read their banter from
teleprompters in the back of the theater, and
own up to their earlier lapses without going
into too much detail. They aren’t much in-
terested in opening old wounds or settling
scores, though the air in the theater gets
pretty chilly when Rubin and Simmons —
ing themselves seriously as musicians and
took control of their own creativity in the
early 1990s. No longer a novelty act, they
put out a run of four albums — “Paul’s Bou-
tique,” “Check Your Head,” “Ill Communica-
tion” and “Hello Nasty” — that are still
fresh, funny, surprising and beautiful.
“Beastie Boys Story” has its own kind of
beauty, even if the aesthetic is more dad
rock than hip-hop. Horovitz and Diamond
are good company — unassuming without
false modesty; self-aware without irritating
air quotes. They love each other, and they
both loved Adam Yauch, who was 47 when
he died of cancer in 2012. He was, in his
friends’ recollections, the glue that held the
Beastie Boys together, their ethical and in-
tellectual guide as well as the one with the
deepest sense of humor. His loss is both the
film’s emotional anchor and the thread that
connects its anecdotes and digressions. It’s
a jaunt down memory lane and also a mov-
ing and generous elegy.

BEN KENIGSBERG FILM REVIEW GLENN KENNY FILM REVIEW

Quitters Never Win

A bloody yet funny
exercise in mayhem.
THERE’S A SENSE IN WHICH this
Russian film, a raucous, violent
comedy of vengeance written and
directed by Kirill Sokolov, may im-
mediately feel familiar — at least
if you’re a genre film aficionado.
Its early shots show our hero, so to
speak — Matvey (Aleksandr Kuz-
netsov), a young fellow with an
unusually shaped nose wearing a
sweatshirt with a Batman symbol
on it — standing outside of an
apartment, slightly nervous, and
not without reason. He’s holding a
HBO FILMS
new-looking steel hammer behind
catches is just the opening flesh
wound in his exchange of blows
with Andrei, which more or less
fills the running time. Matvey gets
a large tube television smashed
into his face, in slow motion. Then
Andrei does some nasty stuff to
him with a power drill. Through it
all, Matvey refuses to kick the
bucket. He’s persistent in other re-
spects as well. Once handcuffed in
a bathtub, he extracts a bobby pin
from the tub’s drain using his
tongue to free himself. This is one
of the least of his feats of derring-
do.
All of this is shot and edited with
exemplary brio and color, and ac-
companied by a score (by Vadim

School Scandal Served With a Smile

“THOROUGHBREDS,” the 2018 debut feature
of the playwright Cory Finley, was not to ev-
ery taste, but for acid wit and gliding cam-
era moves, it could hardly be beat. Finley’s
second feature, “Bad Education,” showing
Saturday night on HBO, traffics in a kindred
casual misanthropy. The movie offers an
agreeably slick account of an early-2000s
scandal in which a former superintendent
of schools in Roslyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to
stealing $2 million from his district.
And like the character played by Hugh
Jackman, the superintendent Frank Tas-
sone, “Bad Education” initially keeps its
cards close, playing tricks with viewers’
sympathies.
Frank, his hair gelled back and his face
always wrenched into a grin, goes out of his
way to be presentable. He remembers de-
tails about students from years earlier or
recognizes their siblings. He meets with a
parent who pushes for accelerated treat-
ment for her third-grader. He maintains (or
at least fakes) an interest in the lives of his
teachers. He even welcomes an unsched-
Allison Janney and Hugh Jackman in
“Bad Education,” about a financial
scandal at a school on Long Island.
Bad Education
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 43
minutes. Saturday night on HBO.
about a school construction boondoggle.
This, it turns out, is one of his less sharp
moves. (The real-life student journalist who
helped break the story of the scandal wrote
about her experiences for The New York
Times.)
Part of the strength of “Bad Education” is
in showing how easily Frank gets others to
sign on to his plans. When it comes to light
that a fellow administrator, Pam (Allison
Janney), has dipped into the district’s fi-
nances to the tune of more than $200,000,
Frank is, at first, able to contain the fallout
by noting the impact bad press would have.
College admissions, property values, a
forthcoming budget vote — all would be in
The 2004 New York Magazine article on
which the film is based asked whether
Roslyn residents allowed themselves to be
duped by Tassone. The film, which adheres
to the reporting with reasonable fidelity, is,
at most, slightly more charitable in its as-
sessment. (Ray Romano, terrific as the
school board president, is an island of hu-
manity in the sea of backbiting and self-in-
terest.)
Finley didn’t write “Bad Education,” as
he did “Thoroughbreds,” and if this film
lacks the stylized, pitch-black verbal par-
ries of that movie, he outfits it with similarly
precise compositions and a jarring, percus-
sive score. The screenplay, by Mike
Makowsky, a student in Roslyn during the
scandal, shows an ear for Long Island flavor
and class tensions, and even the set decora-
tion is attuned to details. The student jour-
nalists’ computer software is spot-on turn-
of-the-aughts.
But it’s Jackman, whose smile appears in-
creasingly wolfish as the film goes on (and
as Frank’s face grows taut with cosmetic
surgery), who ultimately owns “Bad Educa-
tion.” It’s a plum part, sure, but also a deeply
his back.
Matvey gathers the nerve to Why Don’t You Just Die!
ring the bell, and it’s answered by Not rated. In Russian, with subtitles.
the bullet-headed middle-aged de- Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.
tective Andrei (Vitaliy Khaev), a Rent or buy on Amazon, AppleTV
stocky man with a shaved dome and other streaming platforms and
and an irascible demeanor. And he pay-TV operators.
only gets more annoyed once he
learns Matvey’s hammer is meant
for his skull. QP and Sergey Solovyov) whose
As the film’s title indicates, Ennio Morricone pastiches add
things don’t go as planned. amusing notes of faux grandeur.
Sokolov’s debut feature is a cle- The nods to Morricone are also, of
ver, bloody, often hilarious virtu- course, nods to Quentin Tarantino.
oso exercise in excruciating But the depiction of a social order
harm-doing among mendacious in which almost every participant
is a gangster of some sort, and the
people. Andrei has never met
Matvey, but Matvey loves Olya mordant humor the movie finds in
this, is Russian through and
(Evgeniya Kregzhde), Andrei’s
daughter; as a flashback reveals, through.
Olya has pushed the credulous
Matvey to kill her father with a
tale of childhood rape.
The jaunty tone of the movie
would be utterly distasteful were
Olya’s story true. But that tone
also tips off the savvy viewer that
something else is up. When An-
drei blasts Matvey with a shotgun,
blowing apart one of his sofa cush-
ions, which in turn expectorates a ARROW FILMS

uled interview with a school newspaper re- jeopardy. For a brief time, Pam looks like unsympathetic one — a chance for the actor bunch of American dollars, those Aleksandr Kuznetsov, left, and
porter, Rachel (Geraldine Viswanathan), the central player in the thefts, rather than to channel his charisma toward dark, mis- deeper motives becomes obvious. Vitaliy Khaev stubbornly persist in
encouraging her to dig deeper on a story one piece of a puzzle. chievous ends. The stray buckshot that Matvey “Why Don’t You Just Die!”
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C5

MANOHLA DARGIS FILM REVIEW GLENN KENNY

FILM REVIEW

Please Hide
The Babies
And Koalas
NED KELLY IS A LEGENDARY FIGURE in Aus-
tralian history, a 19th-century outlaw of
Irish descent who came to symbolize the
struggle of oppressed people on that conti-
nent. (Oppressed white people, that is.)
“True History of the Kelly Gang” takes the

True History of the Kelly Gang

Rated R for violence, language and a bit of
sexuality. In English and Latin, with subtitles.
Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. Rent or buy
on Amazon, AppleTV and other streaming
platforms, as well as pay-TV operators.

form of Kelly’s story as told by Ned himself.

PHOTOGRAPHS VIA SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS
While not well versed in letters, he writes a
lengthy missive to his child as his hour
comes nigh, recounting his ultra-hard-
scrabble childhood.
“A man can never outrun his fate, nor the
crimes of his past,” he observes, anticipat-
ing his own end. His account of himself fea-
tures anecdotes that include his refusal, as a
child under the tutelage of outlaw Harry
Power (Russell Crowe, looking very re-
laxed), to shoot off the genitals of the local
official (Charlie Hunnam) who’s been sexu-
ally abusing Ned’s mother. Yikes.

One Free Spirit Inspires Another

There are a couple of action scenes in
“True Story of the Kelly Gang” that show off
the director Justin Kurzel’s technical chops
and eye for novelty. A climactic shootout
with startling strobe-like lighting effects is
undeniably impressive. But the jumpy,
In a claustrophobic small town covers a fragile sense of self-worth and then
springy qualities of the movie’s visual style
suffers the inevitable heartache and disap-
in the early 1960s, two pointment. are unfortunately undercut by its verbal
content.
teenage girls find friendship. The director Martha Stephens, working
The movie is adapted from a Booker
from a script by Shannon Bradley-Colleary,
handles this material smoothly, creating a Prize-winning novel by Peter Carey. If you
IT’S THE EARLY 1960S in rural Oklahoma, haven’t read the book, you might wonder
solid, tangible sense of place with land-
where the wind really does sweep down the while watching the movie, “THIS cold por-
plain, just like the song says. There, the scapes, gusts of wind and a blue sky that
feels more confining than sheltering. ridge won a Booker?” Well, no. While
teenage Iris (Kara Hayward), a bookish in- Carey’s voice for Kelly does contain some
Stephens, whose movies include “Land
Ho!” (directed with Aaron Katz), is particu- commonplace language, the prose also has
To the Stars music and momentum (the narrative ab-
larly sensitive to Iris’s surroundings, her
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. jures commas but is still clear enough to
family’s weather-beaten house and barn,
Rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV and other flow coherently, no mean feat). It also al-
and the dusty road where Maggie rescues
streaming platforms and pay-TV operators. lows Kelly some vivid similes, as in, “Your
her. In one scene, Maggie and Iris take off
Grandma was like a snare laid out by God
down that road in a car, enjoying a much-
for Red Kelly.” Shaun Grant’s script rarely, if
trovert, is trying to keep her head down. needed if frustratingly brief escape. Then ever, avails itself of such riches; instead, the
The only child of a rancher and a bored, it’s back to their mean little town with its narration and dialogue teem with outlaw-
restless housewife (Shea Whigham and Jor- small-minded dictators and frustrated, hot- movie clichés.
dana Spiro), Iris is a loner, though it’s un- house desires.
clear if that’s by choice or inclination. Some those somewhat sainted free spirits who Top, Kara Hayward, Grant and Kurzel’s conceptions of the
It’s always nice to see characters break characters are so one-dimensional they
nights, she runs off to a swimming hole, light up everyday dreariness (at least in the left, as Iris and free, but you need to care whether they do.
where she floats under a canopy of stars. movies), stirring things up while inspiring Liana Liberato as seem to defeat the movie’s talented cast. As
One insurmountable problem with this Kelly’s mother, Essie Davis, excellent in
She’s primed for some kind of change, clucks of disapproval and censure. Maggie in “To the
story is that Iris just isn’t interesting
which arrives with Maggie (Liana Libe- Like almost everything else in this movie, Stars.” Above, Malin “The Babadook” and the coming “Baby-
enough and certainly not developed enough teeth,” does little besides jut out her jaw
rato), a spirited newcomer with a murky Maggie is at once likable and exceedingly fa- Akerman plays
either as a character or in terms of the per- while either sneering or smirking. Her trite
past. miliar. Part of the character’s appeal comes Maggie’s mother.
A drifty, overly sleepy coming-of-age formance. She isn’t simply closed off, like a defiance is exemplified when she remon-
from the alluring tug of the rebel, the figure
story, “To the Stars” (which starts stream- who promises freedom and who will blaze turtle in lockdown; she’s devoid of spark, strates against a would-be teacher who
ing Friday) tracks the inevitable friendship intensely before flaming out or burning her personality, and it leaves you searching for would pollute young Ned’s mind with
that arises the moment that Maggie ap- world to the ground. Whatever happens, you someone to care about. Maggie fits that role “fancy books.” As the adult Kelly, George
pears onscreen to defend Iris from some know that something has to give; it always for a while. But the movie’s great missed op- MacKay seems content to run around with
bullies. It takes Iris a while to warm to Mag- does. And it’s this expectation of trouble portunity can be found at a beauty parlor, his shirt off and make faces while faux-punk
gie, partly because Iris’s mother has done a ahead that gives the story its light pulse, en- where another loner, Hazel (a very good Ad- songs adorn the soundtrack. For minutes at
number on her self-esteem. She isn’t used to livening both the proceedings and Iris as she elaide Clemens), styles hair and opens up a time, you might think, and also maybe
kindness from other people, especially follows her genre destiny: With Maggie’s another world with a few words, darting wish, that you were watching “Trainspot-
those her own age. But Maggie is one of help, Iris blooms and experiences joy, dis- looks and gentle, seductive grace. ting.”

FILM REVIEWS

cerns of the island locally known Hemsworth as Tyler Rake, a

EATING UP EASTER as Rapa Nui, which sits in the
Pacific Ocean, more than 2,000
Not rated. In English, Spanish and
miles from mainland Chile.
Rapanui, with subtitles. Running
time: 1 hour 17 minutes. On Music While its megalithic moai
Box StreamLocal. statues have made Rapa Nui a
. ...................................................................
vacation attraction, this film
Easter Island is often described (streaming via Music Box) pro-
as “mysterious” and “mystical.” vides a more microcosmic in-
That outsider perspective is sight from residents, who talk
reflected in archival TV segments about how tourism and modern-
ization are ruining their ances-
included in “Eating Up Easter,” a
tral land.
documentary about the very real,
The Rapanui director Sergio
terrestrial, socio-economic con-
Mata’u Rapu and his anthropolo-
gist wife, Elena, who wrote and
co-produced the film, frame
“Eating Up Easter” as a letter to
their young son — having him
has made them think more about
the future of the island.
But even with the personal
elements, the lean feature also
feels like an educational pro-
CLUE OF THE DAY gram, to a fault.
There are too many compli-
MEN & ART
MACHINES cated moving parts stuffed into
its short running time, from
residence laws to the economic
JOHN MOORE- boom brought on by the 1994 film
BRABAZON, THE “Rapa Nui,” co-produced by
FIRST PILOT LICENSED Kevin Costner, which created
BY ENGLAND, HAD many jobs but also introduced
LEARNED ABOUT materialism. Rapa Nui has the
ENGINES WORKING FOR highest per capita income in
THIS MAN, FIRST HALF Chile, but the island has been
OF A FAMOUS PAIR dumped with a nearly unman-
ageable amount of garbage,
mostly from tourists.
FOR THE CORRECT
One of the residents the film
RESPONSE, WATCH
focuses on is the outspoken
JEOPARDY! TONIGHT
Mama Piru, who had dedicated
OR LOOK IN THIS
SPACE MONDAY her life to cleaning up waste. The
IN THE TIMES. director sometimes adds voice-
over to others’ experiences that
feels inauthentic. He weaves
Yesterday’s Response: autobiographical tidbits because
WHAT IS JAPAN?
these issues are close to home,
but the meta-doc method doesn’t
mercenary dispatched to Dhaka,
Bangladesh, to retrieve the kid-
napped son of a crime lord (the
Bollywood stalwart Pankaj Tri-
pathi) from a competing gang.
After a perfunctory setup — the
criminals are all in cahoots with
the cops, and the kingpin is up to
his own manipulative tricks — the
film gets right down to business,
serving up a relentless barrage of
blood, bullets and blown-up cars.
“Extraction” (streaming on
Netflix) is the debut feature by
Sam Hargrave, who’s worked as a
stunt coordinator on several
Marvel movies. Although not a
superhero film, it shares the
genre’s familiar muddled moral-
SCREEN MEDIA
ity: Tyler is painted as a ster-
Angus Macfadyen returns to a role he first played 25 years ago in “Robert the Bruce,” which he also co-wrote. eotypical good bad guy, tortured
by personal tragedy and re-
fighting to free his country from movie. Despite welcome tension
deemed by his mission, even as
ROBERT THE BRUCE beneath the heel of England;
repeated defeats have left him
injected by Morag’s predatory
brother-in-law (Zach McGowan),
he kills and maims some teenage
Not rated. Running time: 2 hours 4 minions in the process. Randeep
worn, wounded and with a price the tone is almost defiantly re-
minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon,
AppleTV and other streaming on his head, hunted by Sasse- strained. Yet the movie’s rare
Hooda plays his foil, a kingpin
deputy whose ruthlessly efficient
platforms and pay-TV operators. nachs and greedy Scots alike. skirmishes feel authentically
. ................................................................... violence is inflected by its own,
Mostly rejecting clamor and battle-wearied and handicapped corny undercurrent of paternal
I could have forgiven the non- spectacle (unlike David Macken- by conscience. There’s a pleasing pathos. David Harbour also ap-
Scottish actors in “Robert the zie’s gory 2018 take on Bruce, humility and introspection to this pears briefly, adding to the film’s
Bruce” for torturing my native “Outlaw King”), the director, Bruce — a ruler no longer sure if lineup of tortured machos.
tongue had the filmmakers not Richard Gray, travels a more his patriotic purpose is worth the The fight scenes are plastic and
also wrapped this sort-of ap- leisurely, reflective route. So we carnage. His joints may be stiffer glossy. Hargrave mistakes gore
pendage to Mel Gibson’s “Brave- watch Bruce trudge despondently than his resolve; but, in placing for cool and technical prowess for
heart” in a caul of Celtic fairy through snowy countryside, enact the warrior temporarily aside, choreography, deploying overlong
dust. The result is a picture that a Scottish legend about a spider Macfadyen and his director have one-take shots that look like “Call
feels more Walt Disney than spinning a web, and languish on a helped us more clearly to see the of Duty” outtakes. He does com-
George R.R. Martin, a strangely farm where a young widow,
man. mit to the location, though, creat-
Morag (an appealing Anna
subdued and sluggish game of JEANNETTE CATSOULIS ing a properly global thriller with
thrones more focused on conva- Hutchison), and her children tend a fine ensemble cast. Much of the
lescence than conflict. his wounds. Lingering, sentimen- dialogue is in Hindi and Bengali,
Or perhaps not so strange,
considering the 25 years that
tal scenes of Bruce bonding with
Morag’s youngsters fill a me-
EXTRACTION and the Bollywood actors —
particularly Hooda, as well as
Rated R for gratuitous gore and
have passed since its star and andering middle section, while violence. In English, Hindi and Priyanshu Painyuli as a swagger-
co-writer, Angus Macfadyen, first portents and witchy premonitions Bengali, with English subtitles. ing mob boss — lift the dull pro-
(Morag’s mother is a seer) float in Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes.
played the titular Scottish king in ceedings, delivering their lines
Gibson’s spirited ode to William and out of the narrative. On Netflix. with a hint of melodrama. They’re
. ...................................................................

Watch JEOPARDY! quite work in a film that also

strives to be so straightfor-
7 p.m. on Channel 7 wardly informative.
KRISTEN YOONSOO KIM
Wallace. The new film takes place
between Wallace’s death in 1305
Largely filmed in Montana
(everyone here looks frozen half An action thriller powered by
a tease for how fun this movie
could have been if it weren’t so
and the Battle of Bannockburn in to death), “Robert the Bruce” is, brute force rather than ideas or somber.
1314. Bruce has grown tired of for long stretches, an inaction style, “Extraction” stars Chris DEVIKA GIRISH
 C6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

MANOHLA DARGIS CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

A Trippy Musical Escape. Shall We Dance?

We all could use some laughs as well as beauty, joy, another reality. Recently,
musicals have become my great escape, because, well, they’re s’wonderful,
filled with affairs of the heart and body, toe-tapping rhythms, witty lyrics and
syncopated motion. The stories invariably turn on couples (or matchmakers)
and play like courtships: Guy and gal meet, they dance, sing, kiss, argue.
Then they dance again, beautifully, because it is always fair weather in the
musical even when it’s storming outside. Here are five from the 1930s, the
decade when movies went from all talking to all singing and dancing.
1931
‘The Smiling Lieutenant’
Best known for exquisite romantic com-
edies, Ernst Lubitsch was also instrumental
in developing the musical as a genre. “The
Smiling Lieutenant” follows Niki (Maurice
Chevalier), a rakish Viennese officer. One
night at a beer garden (where else?), he
meets Franzi (Claudette Colbert), a violin-
ist, and they’re soon cooing over breakfast.
“You put kisses in the coffee,” he sings.
There aren’t many songs and scarcely
any dancing, but it’s funny, sexy and thor-
oughly charming. During a waltz, Franzi
asks Niki if the other woman in his life, Prin-
cess Anna (Miriam Hopkins), is a blonde or
a brunette. He says that he doesn’t know
and Franzi laughs, because she now real-
izes that Niki hasn’t seen Anna in the buff.
The moment is naughty in a film suffused
with adult knowing and melancholic long-
ing.
The cleverest, zingiest song is “Jazz Up
Your Lingerie,” which Franzi and Anna per-
form together. After slaps and tears, the
worldly Franzi suggests that Anna ditch her
bloomers for something flirtier. The women
are rivals, but as they play a piano trilling
about lace and melodies — and everything
else unmentionable — they form a rueful
sisterhood that’s as emotionally persuasive
as it is narratively dubious. The film doesn’t
end the way you want. “A poignant sadness
infiltrates the director’s gayest moments,”
Andrew Sarris once observed — but that’s
Lubitsch, whose touch, “is this counterpoint
between sadness and gaiety.”
Stream on Flix Fling.
1933
‘42nd Street’
“You’re going out there as a youngster, but
you’ve got to come back a star!” Marsh
(Warner Baxter), the director in the back-
From top: A musical stage musical “42nd Street,” is talking to
number in the film “42nd Peggy (Ruby Keeler), the untested hoofer
Street”; Fred Astaire and and singer who’s suddenly become the lead
Ginger Rogers in “Top in his splashy show. She’s gotta be a suc-
Hat”; Miriam Hopkins, cess, Marsh insists, because so much —
left, and Claudette “200 people, 200 jobs” — is at stake. She’s
Colbert in “The Smiling gotta be a star because it’s the middle of the
Lieutenant”; right, Lena Depression, and the film’s audience could
Horne in “The Duke Is use a break, too, as well as reason to smile.
Tops”; and Bill Robinson Keeler is a period curiosity, with a girlish
and Shirley Temple in voice and tiny feet that jackhammer the
“The Little Colonel.” floor. The greater attraction here, though, is
Busby Berkeley, the dance director and cre-
ator of sui generis spectacles. This was
Berkeley’s first film at Warner Bros., and he
was already waving his freak flag, as is evi-
dent in the number built around the song
“Young and Healthy.” “If I could hate yuh,
I’d keep away,” Dick Powell croons to a Jean
Harlow type with a fox stole over her
breasts. “But that ain’t my nature/I’m full of
vitamin A.”
It’s funny and maddeningly catchy and
you don’t really have time to think what it
means, because suddenly this Harlow look-
alike is part of a cavalcade of peroxide
blondes who begin gliding past Powell on a
revolving platform. (The third to pass by is
the pre-Astaire Ginger Rogers.) Powell
sings to each chorine with affable leers, arm
squeezes and a suggestive tug of his bow
tie. Then he and his smiling partner kiss,
and the camera pushes in close, as if to get
in on the action. When they unlock lips, the
screen explodes in an orgiastic Berkeley bo-
nanza with dozens of dancers forming geo-
metric patterns on a glossy black stage. It’s
de-lovely, demented cine-surrealism.
Rent or buy on Amazon, Flix Fling,
FandangoNow, iTunes, Vudu and
YouTube.
1935
‘Top Hat’
The setting is an absurdly palatial Italian-
ate hotel — a perfect Depression-era fan-
tasy — with a soundstage canal and extras
swanked up like toffs. Here, Jerry (Fred As-
taire), a dancer, has pursued Dale (Ginger
Rogers), a model. She thinks he’s married,
which he doesn’t know, misunderstanding
being a routine Astaire and Rogers strata-
gem, but she’s as drawn to him as he is to
her. There’s been some silly drama, and
now, after a lot banter and a few fabulous
numbers, Dale appears in a gown trimmed
in ostrich feathers and Jerry shows up in
WARNER BROS.
RKO RADIO PICTURES, VIA EVERETT COLLECTION
PARAMOUNT PICTURES MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCTIONS
20TH CENTURY FOX, VIA EVERETT COLLECTION
white tie and tails.
He invites her to dance, but she’s reluc-
tant, expressing the push-pull that charac-
terizes the Astaire-Rogers romance here
and in other films. She relents and they be-
gin dancing. “All I know is that it’s,” says
Jerry, who starts singing: “heaven . . . I’m in
heaven.” The transition from talk to song is
satiny smooth and heralds the moment that
shifts the scene from familiar fiction (where
characters are mortals, almost) to the ex-
alted, magical kingdom of the musical
(where they’re Astaire & Rogers).
Eventually, there’s a cut that initiates the
number’s second half, an orchestrated pas-
sage in long (and wide) shot that shows you
Dale and Jerry’s bodies, head to toe. The
whole thing is hypnotically beautiful, an ex-
pression of desire conveyed through har-
monious flow. Finally, the dance ends and
the lovers — because now we know they’re
in love — pause. Rogers is panting ever so
gently, and her breathing gives the moment
an erotic grace note. Katharine Hepburn
said that Astaire gave Rogers class and
Rogers gave him sex, but it was their danc-
ing together that brought the heat.
Rent or buy on Amazon, FandangoNow
iTunes, Vudu and YouTube.
1935
‘The Little Colonel’
For the second half of the 1930s, Shirley
Temple was a box-office sensation, a fact
that’s at once understandable and baffling.
She was an excellent professional cutie pie,
but while some of her films are amusing and
a few are better than most, others can make
you gag because of their treacle and winc-
ing representations. Despite my qualms,
there’s a very good reason to watch “The
Little Colonel,” and his name is Bill Rob-
inson.
He was one of the most famous dancers of
the early 20th century; when he died in
1949, 32,000 mourners paid their respects.
Nicknamed Bojangles, he came out of
vaudeville and made his screen debut in
“Dixiana” (1930), performing a dance that
was cut when the film played in the South.
Fox soon tapped him to appear with Temple
in “The Little Colonel,” a queasy post-bel-
lum fantasy about a relentlessly upbeat tot,
Lloyd, who’s a peacemaker for her es-
tranged Southern grandfather and her
mother, who’s married a Northerner.
It’s a rich tangle of contradictions partly
because of Lloyd’s guileless if pointed role
as an intermediary between the black world
and the white. Crucial to that is her relation-
ship with her grandfather’s servant, Walker
(Robinson). They perform two dances to-
gether, the most important on the symboli-
cally freighted plantation staircase (shades
of “Gone With the Wind”!). Walker teachers
Lloyd how to dance up the stairs, with him
leading the way or, as the film historian
Donald Bogle put it: “Robinson became the
master in their relationship when he taught
her the staircase dance routines.”
Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu
and YouTube.
1938
‘The Duke Is Tops’
In 1936, Fox hired Ralph Cooper to choreo-
graph another Temple vehicle. Cooper had
founded Amateur Night at the Apollo,
where he was working when studio execu-
tives persuaded him to go to Hollywood.
Fox signed him but didn’t know what to do
with him. Hollywood, as Cooper later wrote
in a memoir, “wasn’t really interested in a
black leading man.” So he enrolled in Fox’s
film school. “I decided that instead of ap-
pearing in pictures that demeaned blacks, I
would try to make pictures that glorified
blacks.”
He did just that, creating hits like “The
Duke Is Tops,” an amusing, creaky back-
stage musical with an all-black cast that
was shot in 10 days on a shoestring. Cooper
snared Lena Horne to play Ethel, a singer
and the love interest of his character, Duke,
a theater impresario. When Ethel is lured
away by promises of stardom, Duke bombs
out of show business and begins peddling a
cure-all elixir for a grifter. It’s easy to see
why Fox signed Cooper, who was nick-
named the “Dark Gable”: He’s all charisma.
This was Horne’s screen debut and her
line readings are stiff, but she was born to be
adored by a camera, and her singing is
dreamy. The music was arranged by Phil
Moore, who worked at the major studios
(Disney’s “Dumbo”), often without credit.
His gets his due in “The Duke Is Tops,”
which includes brief, tantalizing turns from
other notables, like Willie Covan, for years
the head dance instructor for M.G.M., and
the singer-dancer Marie Bryant, who went
from the Cotton Club to Hollywood, where
she worked for Gene Kelly and helped teach
white stars how to move like immortals.
Stream on Amazon.

FILM REVIEWS

Matthey) is almost uncomfortably
1BR solicitous. The other residents
can’t do enough for one another,
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30
minutes. Rent or buy on AppleTV,
sharing barbecues and loving
FandangoNOW and other streaming concern for the aging actress
platforms and pay-TV operators. (Susan Davis) who appears to be
. ...................................................................
everyone’s favorite.
A group of crazies tries its hand at But there’s a Stepford quality to
social engineering in “1BR,” a their congeniality that Sarah
shrugs off, moving in with her cat
claustrophobic thriller set in a
in tow and in violation of the
Los Angeles apartment complex
building’s no-pets policy. Harder
whose evils the sun never comes
close to disinfecting. to ignore are the creepy atten-
For Sarah (Nicole Brydon tions of Lester (Clayton Hoff),
Bloom), recently arrived in Holly- who skulks around on the fringes
wood with plans to become a of gatherings and leers at her
costume designer, her new home through glasses with one lens
seems idyllic. The upbeat man- mysteriously blackened. Already
ager (Taylor Nichols) has chosen unsettled by the family issues
her over dozens of applicants, and she’s trying to escape, Sarah soon
her handsome neighbor (Giles finds her Zoloft can’t compete
with the ominous noises that keep
her awake all night and, it seems,
only she can hear.
Drawing on a fascination with
cults and utopian communities,
the director and co-writer, David
Marmor, has created a mildly
entertaining survival story whose
depiction of psychological indoc-
trination far outstrips its generic
dips into torture. Bloom is too
bland to persuasively dramatize
the stakes, and the movie’s
shocks (sorry, kitty!) are too
conventional to scare. But the
ending is nicely done, and the
script’s beady focus on the corro-
sive embrace of groupthink feels
fresh and unexpectedly satisfy-
ing.
JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Barry Mason — a straight couple
CIRCUS OF BOOKS who kept it a secret from their
synagogue, friends and family.
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 32
minutes. On Netflix. The documentary (streaming
. ................................................................... on Netflix) is directed by the
couple’s daughter, Rachel, and it
Internet killed the video store in
promises an inside view of the
the documentary “Circus of
pair’s double life. But as the story
Books,” which examines the
unfolds, it becomes clear that the
history of a long-running porn people who are least equipped to
shop and adult goods store in thoroughly profile Karen and
West Hollywood that closed in Barry are their children. The
2019. When the film begins, Circus family business went undiscussed
of Books is on its last legs. But 30 at home for years; even though
years ago, it was not only one of the curtain has since been drawn,
the biggest distributors of gay Karen and Barry still compart-
pornography in the area, but also mentalize. They are strictly busi-
one of largest gay porn producers ness when they discuss their
in the country. Perhaps the most most impossible decisions, even
surprising piece of the story was shrugging off the choice —
that it was run by Karen and presented as Karen’s to make —
to have only Barry face the
charges brought against them
during the Reagan administra-
tion’s crusades against obscenity.
But the film blossoms when it
focuses on interviews with em-
ployees, longtime customers and
the stars of the porn the store
financed. These members of the
community reflect on a bygone
era with wit and warmth, and the
film supports their memories with
golden-lit archival footage of the
neighborhood in the 1980s. It also
grounds the store in its political
history, including the devastation
of the AIDS crisis. The remem-
brances are the movie’s heart —
not a family secret, but a commu-
nity’s pride.
TEO BUGBEE
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C7

YOUR WEEKEND WATCH

WITH TONY and MANOHLA

All Right, Let’s Get Metaphysical

Deep thoughts were revealed years, which scarcely seems long enough
for all that he experiences, including in his
as we and our readers watched very funny and sweet wooing of Rita. It’s
the classic ‘Groundhog Day.’ easy to get caught up in his evolution and
to lose sight of what MacDowell and Ramis
OK, READERS, RISE AND SHINE — Sonny do with Rita. As the innocent foil for Phil,
and Cher are on the radio! she has to retain our sympathies even
For our latest Weekend Watch, A. O. when we’re giggling at his elaborate, comic
Scott and Manohla Dargis asked you to ruses. She could have been the film’s dupe,
check out (or revisit) “Groundhog Day,” but she’s its soul: the woman the man has
Harold Ramis’s 1993 blissout. Bill Murray to learn to be worthy for.
stars as Phil Connors, a jaundiced weather-
man for a Pittsburgh television station. I always wondered, why does the Bill
While covering Groundhog Day in the Murray character get to socially-emo-
charming hamlet of Punxsutawney, Pa., tionally evolve over the (countless)
Phil becomes mysteriously stuck in a time iterations of the day, ultimately “getting
loop that causes him to repeat the same the girl” while the Chris Elliott charac-
day ad infinitum. He suffers. He laughs. He ter remains mired in his smarmy muck-
learns to play the piano. And though he iness the whole time? Not sure that the
never loses his quintessential Bill Murray- Elliott character was any less unlovable
ness, he changes. With so many of us and in need of some character-building
locked down and facing days that blur than the Murray character.
together, it felt like the perfect film to re- — CHCollins, Asheville, NC
visit. From the comments from fellow
Watchers, it appears that many of you felt SCOTT At the heart of the Phil-Rita ro-
the same. mance lies a marvelous temporal paradox.
It takes Phil thousands of Groundhog Days
‘Get a loaf of French bread, warm it in to earn Rita’s love. It takes her just one day
the microwave. Hold onto it and pre- to fall in love with him. I used to think that
tend it’s my hand while you’re watch- the imbalance reflected a conventionally
ing.’ It was our first date, to watch sentimental view of courtship, and that
“Groundhog Day” together from two Rita, for all her loveliness, was a bit of a
separate locations, syncing the movie cipher, an idealized foil for the more compli-
and communicating with our phones. It cated Phil.
was creative, romantic and charming. But now I think she represents a differ-
‘Next time we should Zoom’. ent kind of ideal: not only the kind of per-
— Liz Fish, Port Jefferson, NY son Phil might end up with, but also the
kind of person he might become. Unlike
MANOHLA DARGIS It’s been awhile since I other women, and unlike most Punx-
watched “Groundhog Day” partly because sutawneyites, she isn’t fooled by Phil’s
I was worried it wouldn’t live up to my early attempts to impersonate a decent
memory of it. Not every film can withstand person. The game he tries to run on her —
repeat viewings, but this one seems self- figuring out what kind of man she wants
consciously created for multiple viewings. and making himself into a replica of that
As Phil says when he takes a date to see a man — doesn’t succeed. She picks up the
movie: “I love this film. I’ve seen it over a false notes, again and again. How many
hundred times.” times does she slap his face?
This time, I was struck by the brilliance Ramis (and Murray) keep our attention
of the editing and its perfect comedic tim- focused on Phil’s path toward self-knowl-
ing. I also was really taken with Andie edge, compassion and the feeling of being
MacDowell as Rita, the open-faced, sweet- at home in the universe. Rita is at the end
hearted news producer who inspires Phil’s of this path because she has always been in
metaphysical journey. She holds her own possession of those qualities, making her
against Murray beautifully. The other thing his spiritual master as well as the love of
that I noticed — and this has a lot to do his life. It’s because of her own enlighten-
with our present situation — is how melan- ment that she is able to recognize his so
cholic it is. This time I felt pretty flooded quickly.
with emotion when Phil says “Well, what if
there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one ANUJ SHRESTHA One-third Buddhism, one-third Augus-
today.” tine, one-third Nietzsche, and one-third
not only is she convincing, she also Sartre, this metaphysical rom-com
How many lives does Phil save? As we
At the very end of “Groundhog Day,” conveys the warmth the film seeks as offers a conversion tale that bends and
come better acquainted with what’s going
Phil (Bill Murray) says, “Do you know its end-game message. blends a recursive narrative of time,
on in Punxsutawney on Feb. 2, we catch
what today is? Today is tomorrow. It — BG Klinger, Chicago, IL death, selfhood, nihilism, and attach-
glimpses of the terrible ordinary day that
happened.” For a long time, I’ve been ment. It makes plain that our future is
might have been. That always was. A
holding onto something that Dr. Tony DARGIS The romance felt very different to our past until we grasp the gift of the
homeless man dies alone. A boy falls from a
Fauci has said: the coronavirus pan- me this time, maybe just because I’ve been other in knowledge, love and levity.
tree onto the hard sidewalk. The mayor
demic will end, he said. “I promise.” I married that much longer. I recognized all — HighBar, Chicago, IL
chokes on a piece of steak. We’re only
don’t know when the pandemic will aware of these potential tragedies because the struggles to do better, be better. I’d also
end, but I have faith that someday I will Phil is around to prevent them from hap- forgotten that Phil wasn’t even interested DARGIS I like the comedy of cruelty
be able to say, “It happened.” pening. And once he finally masters the in Rita at first. We only know that he’s (sometimes). But these days, given how
— Cheryl, Knoxville, TN day, he is the only one with any knowledge interested in Rita when he calls out her precarious life seems right now, I am ex-
of the other ways it could have gone. We name (twice!) while with another woman. hausted by petty, self-interested nastiness
A. O. SCOTT How many times does Phil kill have an inkling, thanks to our condensed It’s such a mean moment I gasped this that seems to be such an acceptable part of
himself? He dies in a fiery crash, taking the experience of what must be a very long time, but as a reader, Janet Williams, American life. We need to be like Phil. We
groundhog with him. He steps in front of a series of repetitions. The intriguing thing pointed out, the film is “a little cruel.” Phil should work on being worthy of those we
train. He jumps off a roof. He gets into the about Rita is that she might have an ink- dates yet another woman and only then, an love and being worthy of being loved. Or, to
bathtub with a toaster. Rita and their cam- ling, too. hour into the story — and maybe months put it another way:
eraman, Larry (the indispensable Chris and years into Phil’s adventure — does he
Elliott) have to identify his body. I had I was struck by Andie MacDowell’s asks Rita what she’s interested in. Men! “The optimism of the movie hints that
forgotten about this macabre little se- sheer adorableness in this film, which I Evidently Danny Rubin’s original script we can not only change but improve
quence, or maybe I just folded it in with the mean in the broadest and best sense of indicated that Phil was stuck in his time and as a result find love. Or is love only
rest of the comedy. the term. She has to play “straight loop for 10,000 years, but Ramis told me in possible when we learn to forget our-
But death haunts this movie all the same, man” to Bill Murray, not an easy task an interview that he and Rubin decided selves and think of others?”
and this time around it haunted me, too. for any actor. But her effect is such that that the character was stuck for about 10 — Patricia Aakre, New York

FILM REVIEWS

A scene from the animated

THE PLAGUES Netflix film “The Willoughbys,”

directed by Kris Pearn.
OF BRESLAU
Not rated. In Polish, with subtitles.
Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. book by Lois Lowry, who sought
On Netflix.
. ................................................................... to satirize the gothic fantasy
genre by perverting key themes:
Patryk Vega’s lurid opus centers wicked parents, lonely children,
on a particularly imaginative eccentric benefactors. But in
serial killer, and the film’s title adapting the book, the director
gives a couple of clues to connois- Kris Pearn, who co-wrote the
seurs of the genre (and Polish script with Mark Stanleigh, bun-
history). Breslau is the old name gles some of Lowry’s cleverness.
of the city of Wroclaw, which Various fun and surprising sce-
indicates our maniac may look to narios — a booby-trapped estate
the past for inspiration. This is sale, a jailbreak in an oatmeal
reinforced by the reference to cart — are muddled by messy,
pestilence: Could this grandiose zippy pivots. Worse, the darkness
exterminator be sending a mes- of the original tale is diluted by a
sage? NETFLIX
sweetened visual design dripping
Admittedly, these traits apply to with rainbows.
many cinematic psychopaths, offish demeanor of a cold-wave way society neglects women in cheeky voice of Ricky Gervais. He young heroes finding an infant Still, “The Willoughbys” is
who always seem to draw the keyboardist. Lone wolf, check. To particular, its weakest members plays a rascally striped feline abandoned on their stoop. The charming on a moment-to-mo-
worst lessons from yesteryear. solve the ostentatiously deranged in general, courses through the who, in the first of many allusions baby gives them an idea: Why ment basis. Running gags, like
And frankly, “The Plagues of murders hitting Wroclaw, she is movie. More than the displays of to classic children’s texts, evokes not become orphans themselves? how the nanny triggers a car
Breslau” (streaming on Netflix) teamed up with the equally off- flayed flesh, it’s what sticks. the Cheshire cat from “Alice in Designing a fake travel brochure, pileup whenever she crosses the
isn’t all that innovative. Vega beat profiler Magda Drewniak ELISABETH VINCENTELLI Wonderland.” Narrating the story, the siblings send their parents off street, help to round out an unruly
doubles down on the grotesque (Daria Widawska), a nerd in a the cat introduces us to the on a hazardous vacation which, world. The composer Mark Moth-
(the first victim was alive when shapeless hoodie and baggy stately Willoughby home, where they hope, will end in death. They ersbaugh contributes a jazzy
sewn into a bull’s hide, the second jeans. Crime-solving savant, THE WILLOUGHBYS four gifted children — Tim (Will overcome snags in their scheme score and original song (per-
was quartered by horses, and so check. Rated PG for sugarcoated parricide. Forte), Jane (Alessia Cara) and with the help of a genial, umbrel- formed by Cara) that punctuate
on), which he then counterbal- What makes the movie some- Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. twins both named Barnaby (Sean la-toting nanny (Maya Rudolph) the giddy mood. Though it tends
ances with a familiar pairing of what interesting is Helena and On Netflix. Cullen) — conspire to rid them- and the garishly adorned com- to feel disjointed as a whole, “The
. ...................................................................
mismatched cops. The sullen Magda’s battle against an estab- selves of their comically callous mander of a nearby candy factory Willoughbys” thrives when it
detective Helena Rus (Malgo- lishment of lunkheaded chauvin- The agreeable animated adven- and neglectful parents (Jane (Terry Crews). Sound familiar? embraces its grim plot and lets
rzata Kozuchowska) has the ists who take their domination for ture “The Willoughbys,” stream- Krakowski and Martin Short). This delightfully macabre mischief reign.
asymmetrical haircut and stand- granted. A pulsating rage at the ing on Netflix, opens with the The story continues with our premise was first cooked up in a NATALIA WINKELMAN
C8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

PLEASE ENJOY THIS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED

STORY FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES FOR KIDS, WHICH APPEARS IN
THE PAPER ON THE LAST SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH.

YOUR BODY IS A data-collecting machine: 3. CHECKER-SHAD

To understand the world around you, you Squares A and B are the
have to do things like see and feel and touch shade. Seriously. The ex
and taste and hear, and then your brain has to brain tries to understa
put all that information together superfast on predictable pattern
to create your reality. Sometimes, though, you can see there’s a s
your brain gets it wrong. Something gets cylinder. So your visual s
lost in translation. When that happens that everything in a sha
ARE YOU — when your brain makes a guess about
what’s happening that really isn’t — you’re
what’s outside it, tries t
which leads you to perc

DIZZY
experiencing an illusion. darker than Square B —
Scientists love to study these mistakes. not really the case.
That’s baecause such errors can teach us
a lot about how the brain works, say the
neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana
Martinez-Conde, authors of ‘‘Champions
of Illusion.’’ It’s kind of like learning how to

YET?
build a car by talking to mechanics about
the ways cars break. Take an optical illusion,
where you see something that’s not there.
That happens because there’s only so much
information you can take in, so your brain
is forced to use a limited number of clues to
make sense of what’s going on. ‘‘It’s building
a very complex environment around us from
almost nothing,’’ Macknik says, ‘‘and it’s
BY DAI SY YU H AS going to have flaws in it.’’
Sometimes the brain’s mistakes can
help doctors identify people who may need
help, like those with vision loss. But most
misfires are perfectly normal. Many illusions,
for instance, work because our brains care
more about what’s changing around us
than what stays the vsame. ‘‘That’s why we
only feel our socks when we first put them on
in the morning,’’ Martinez-Conde says. You’ll
find more than 12 illusions on these pages,
some of which you’ll see better than adults
will. Let’s get weird.

7. SCINTILLATING GRID 8. IMPOSSIBLE SHAPE

Take a look at the pattern of black blocks Impossible objects, like the ones to the right,
and gray lines. In the white circles, you confuse your brain by following some rules but
may start to see black dots appear. (You breaking others. Is that cube broken, or whole?
may notice that the spots are easiest Which side of the triangle is closest to you?
to see when you move your eyes or blink.) They don’t make any sense. Unlike ambiguous
The explanation for this illusion still images, these can’t be seen as stable realistic
eludes scientists. forms, so it’s not uncommon to feel a little
uncomfortable staring at them.

11. TROXLER FADING ILLUSION 12. ROTATING SNAKES

Give that red dot a long, hard stare. Try not A few years ago, a Japanese psychologist,
to blink. Gradually, the thin blue line Akiyoshi Kitaoka, presented this illusion
will disappear. Wild! What’s going on? Your to a roomful of scientists. To the audience’s
visual system is wired to respond to delight, motionless loops of snakes seemed
changes. So, bit by bit, you become used to writhe and roll before their eyes. It seems
to that blue circle and, because it doesn’t to rely on tiny movements made by your
change, your brain starts to ignore it. eye as your gaze moves around the image.
You’ll notice, for example, that it’s easier to
catch the snakes’ dancing out of the
corner of your eye — in what scientists call
your peripheral vision — or when you
blink, rather than when you focus directly
on the reptiles. The moving snakes are
easier to see the younger you are. Test it
with your grandparents! ◊

11 12

ILLUSIONS 2 AND 6: LETICIA SARMENTO. ILLUSION 3: EDWARD ADELSON. ILLUSION 9: NATASHA TIBBOT. ILLUSION 10: NATASHA TIBBOT, AFTER DANIEL CORTES-RASTROLL. ILLUSION 11: NATASHA TIBBOT, AFTER SUSANA MARTINEZ-CONDE. ILLUSION 12: AKIYOSHI KITAOK A. ALL OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS: GETTY IMAGES.
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C9

1. THE FACE-VASE ILLUSION 2. NEON SPREADING

Is that a vase — or two people seeing eye Let your eyes rest on this figure. At its center,
to eye? Your brain is working hard to answer there’s white space — but is it the same
that question. Scientists call this classic as the white space elsewhere? If you see a
double image an ambiguous figure, because blue circle overlapping the four black ones,
you can see one visual in two different ways. you’re not alone. One explanation for what’s
happening here is that your brain is trying to
‘‘fill in the blanks,’’ and so it sees a complete
circular shape based on clues it takes from
the blue lines. Scientists call this effect, in
which just the hint of a shape causes your
brain to see an otherwise nonexistent figure,
illusory contours.

DOW ILLUSION 4. CAFE-WALL ILLUSION

e exact same color and In the early 1970s, a psychologist in Britain
xplanation is that your noticed the pattern at right on the wall of
nd the world based a cafe in the city of Bristol. The illusion relies
ns. Here, for example, in part on the pattern of dark and light
hadow cast by the squares and the gray lines between them,
system, which assumes which somehow tricks the brain so you see
adow is darker than straight, parallel lines as tilting. Weird!
to adjust for that fact,
ceive Square A as
— even though that’s

3 4

5. BULGE ILLUSION 6. EBBINGHAUS ILLUSION

For hundreds of years, artists have been You’ve probably heard your teacher say, ‘‘Use
playing with techniques to make a two- context clues!’’ when you encounter a new
dimensional surface — whether a wall, canvas word. But sometimes, as illusions reveal,
or piece of paper — look like something 3-D. context can trip you up. Here, you probably
To the left, you’ll see that tweaking the shapes see the center circle on the right as pretty big,
we typically associate with a flat black-and- because it’s surrounded by a tight ring of
white checkerboard creates a false sense of smaller circles, whereas the center circle on
depth. The illustrator has adjusted squares so the left seems small compared with its much
that they suggest that the center of the board bigger neighbors. But actually, these center
is twisting upward — or downward, depending circles are the same size! Fun fact: Kids
on how you interpret the image. Several below the age of 7 often don’t see this illusion,
techniques can create depth, which you can possibly because their brains haven’t yet
see all over these pages. You should try it, too! learned about the relationships between size
and distance.

9. HERING ILLUSION
Do you see what I see? Those orange lines are
perfectly straight and parallel, but they look
curved. One reason is that our brain tends to
overestimate the size of very narrow or acute
angles. Research with preschoolers, third-
grade students and young adults in college
suggests that the younger you are, the more
likely it is you will see the curves.

8 9

10. BIRD IN A CAGE

Stare at the green bird for 20 seconds while
trying not to blink, then quickly turn and look
at the empty cage. You’ll see the bird inside!
This trick is called an afterimage illusion.
It works because when you stare long enough,
the specialized cells in your eyes that focus
on the bird have become so used to what
they’re seeing that they respond less when
you look at a white space. In a way, they’re
taking for granted that you are still seeing
the bird.

10
C10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Fine Arts
JON CARAMANICA CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

IMAGES BY MERIEM BENNANI AND ORIAN BARKI

Tapping Into Their Lizard Brains

A scaly world of animated
anxiety and resistance that
captures the virus mood.
QUARANTINE HAS SOFT EDGES: Hours pass
without notice, days are a construct. Here
we are, trapped in a suspension, barely in
control of our time and action no matter how
hard we try. (Though honestly, who’s trying
that hard?)
The “2 Lizards” series of videos by
Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki, which
has been rolling out on Instagram over the
past few weeks, pinpoints this particular
blend of helplessness, lethargy and anxiety.
Deploying a blend of documentary struc-
ture and animation surrealism, the clips are
both poignantly grounded in actual events
and also soothingly fantastical — art on the
fly that’s as ensnared in the past-present-fu-
ture mud as the rest of us.
The four episodes to date — they appear
on Ms. Bennani’s Instagram page — trail a
pair of talking, large-scale, anthropomor-
phized lizards as they try to navigate the
world as coronavirus is rewiring it. They
survey their desiccated neighborhood, ab-
sorb hard news, wear masks as they take to
the streets, and attempt to reckon with the
gravity of the predicament, the fullness of
which always feels just slightly out of reach.
“We decided to go for moods,” Ms. Ben-
nani said in a recent interview, “because
there was so much factual information from
the news that it’s our way of abstracting it
into a feeling that can fuel story.”
To shape the scripts, the two artists, who
live near each other in Brooklyn, start with
a conversation about the tenor of the mo-
ment. Each episode — they’ve been appear-
ing about a week to a week and a half apart
so far — has been slightly tonally different,
becoming, Ms. Barki said, a de facto “diary
of whatever happens in that moment. There
is going to be an arc, and it’s going to reveal
itself to us.”
The hypnotic videos, which run from one
to three minutes, are the first collaboration
between Ms. Bennani, 32, a Moroccan-born
artist, and Ms. Barki, 34, an Israeli-born
filmmaker. In early March, as the city was
beginning to grind to a halt, they found
themselves unsteadied by the new normal
and seeking a creative outlet apart from
their existing work responsibilities.
Once they settled on their animation-su-
perimposed-upon-reality approach, they
set to the task of determining “how to take
3-D cartoons and then make them have
these psychological scenes,” Ms. Bennani
said.
Each artist voices one of the lizards —
Ms. Bennani’s avatar is green, Ms. Barki’s is
more tan — but the lizards themselves are
unnamed, serving as universal stand-ins.
Top, art on the fly: A portrait of “2 Lizards,” characters from a series of videos created by
Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki for Instagram. Above and below, scenes from the videos.
Key to the effectiveness of the videos is
the way the lizards move: with a slight slug-
gishness, always a touch slower than reali-
ty. Take the end of the first episode, in which
they dance side by side to a Miles Davis
song on a Brooklyn rooftop — it’s slippery
and dreamlike. The lizards blink slowly, a
trick the filmmakers use to make them
seem just out of step with their surround-
ings. Ms. Barki and Ms. Bennani also speak
slowly, forcing attention and anticipation.
Like the current reality, the lizards are a lit-
tle hazy.
In the first episode, which was posted on
March 17, they linger on a roof and discuss
the perks of confinement. The tone was cas-
ual and a little sleepy, and also just a hair
skeptical, betraying an uncertainty of just
how serious the problem was going to be-
come. The second episode is palpably tens-
er; they take to the streets to witness the
city’s quiet firsthand, but find it disrupted at
every turn; a nitrile glove lands on their car
windshield out of nowhere. (To capture
street footage for the episode, the two art-
ists rented a Revel and rode around Brook-
lyn.)
In the third episode, the lizards are loung-
ing at home, watching the news, including
an excerpt from an interview with Dr. An-
thony Fauci — rendered as a “good snake,”
Ms. Barki said — where he notes ominously,
“the virus is the clock.” Here again, the pace
oozes — all the things the lizards are doing
as distractions (reading, watching a tiger
camgirl, absorbing news, attending a Zoom
birthday) all bleed into a formless blob.
Only the virus ticks.
Slowly, maybe even imperceptibly, panic
has seeped into the videos. In the fourth
episode, the intensity of the coronavirus im-
pact is made clear with the inclusion of a
new character, a nurse cat voiced by Cady
Chaplin, a nurse at Lenox Hill Hospital. She
tells stories from her personal experiences,
which are jolting — holding a phone to a pa-
tient’s ear so his wife can play him music,
getting eyed suspiciously on the subway for
wearing scrubs — but don’t fundamentally
derail the light narcissism of the lizards,
who still view the crisis through foggy
lenses.
The “2 Lizards” videos have been “the
most on-the-nose, accurate, what it feels
like to be in New York City during this quar-
antine period” cultural product, said Rujeko
Hockley, an assistant curator at the Whit-
ney Museum of American Art, and one of
the curators of the 2019 Whitney Biennial,
which included Ms. Bennani. “They make
me cry.”
Part of their effectiveness owes to how
they’re rooted in actual circumstance but
rendered with fancy and wit. In a moment
when fact can be elusive, or harsh — what’s
unassailable, and needs no translation, is
feeling.
“Art and culture takes facts, events, his-
torical truths, even subjective truths, and
turns them into something that someone
who’s never had that experience can con-
nect to and access empathy,” Ms. Hockley
said. “That’s something Meriem does so
well in general.”
Ms. Bennani frequently uses animation
in her work, which often focuses on women
and young people in Morocco, and deploys
the whimsy of animation to slyly address
serious sociopolitical subjects. At last year’s
Whitney Biennial, she offered a sculpture
garden that contained a pair of videos
grounded in documentary footage and am-
plified with animated flourishes: One video
featured singing luxury homes, and the
other was a quasi-reality show about teen-
agers at the French school in Rabat that Ms.
Bennani attended. (She was one of eight
artists who demanded their work be re-
moved from the Biennial in protest of a
Whitney board member with ties to a mili-
tary supplies firm; the board member re-
signed before the work could be removed.)
Though she’s lived in the United States
for a decade, Ms. Bennani thinks of “2 Liz-
ards” as her first American film. “All of my
projects take place in Morocco,” she said.
“When you work in a new place, it’s charged
with a new historical context, a new political
context. It’s been really fun because I never
did that before.”
Ms. Barki has directed several short films
focused on music and youth culture, and
worked as an editor and director of photog-
raphy on projects for clients including Nike
and Vogue. In the “2 Lizards” series, their
aesthetics blend together — Ms. Bennani’s
interweaving of video and animation
matched with Ms. Barki’s editing, rhythm
and pacing; Ms. Barki’s full immersion into
the news with Ms. Bennani’s laissez faire re-
luctance.
The lizards are animated versions of a
3-D model Ms. Bennani had downloaded
and been saving for a project. But unlike her
usual installations, which often pair videos
with ornate physical environments, these
videos are targeted directly at phones —
“extremely, extremely available,” she said.
The shapeless nature of quarantine time
has also created the opportunity to access a
kind of pre-commercial, pre-expectation
idea about art making. “This almost feels
like if we had known each other when we
were teenagers,” Ms. Bennani said. “Hav-
ing time to take something super seriously
that is not lucrative within an economy kind
of way, but with skill sets that we’ve devel-
oped post-teenagehood.”
At the moment, there is no plan to end the
project — the two are currently working on
the fifth installment. With each episode, the
lizards become a little more tuned in to
what’s happening around them. In the first,
they go as far as the roof; in the second,
they’re on the street; in the third, the news
of the outside world reaches them; and in
the fourth, they learn about the suffering
taking place all around them.
But the real world is always a few days
ahead, a few days worse for wear. The liz-
ards are prelapsarian. They remind us of
how innocent we just were.
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C11

Five to Follow
T H E I N S TAG R A M A RT AC C O U N T S T H AT B R I G H T E N O U R C R I T I C S ’ D A I LY F E E D .

Sketches, Wild Designs and a Photo Diary

By SIDDHARTHA MITTER
Look, Instagram is a contingent space. Im-
ages are deleted, interesting people vanish
for months. The most stable feeds are usu-
ally ones trying to sell something, and that’s
just tedious. Then there’s the matter of pri-
vacy: Sure, a certain artist’s posts are pub-
lic, but who are they really for? What are
the terms of our viewership — or our eaves-
dropping?
And yet! Instagram is a visual commons,
and right now, a lifeline. It documents a
shared condition around the world: Culture
workers are more or less confined, all travel
on hold, projects suspended. In my own
anxious scrolling, it is a balm when artists
take me into the studio, share from the ar-
chive or initiate projects to help us get
through.
The curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng
Ndikung, for instance, is writing daily en-
tries on African LPs from the ’70s and ’80s,
and Cauleen Smith is posting her specula-
tive short films — catch them while they’re
up. I appreciate seeing how organizations
like the Bronx Documentary Center — so
close yet so far, right now, from my Brook-
lyn garret — are contributing to mutual aid
in their hard-hit communities. What about
escape? I’m here for cats — the Scottish
dude who rescued a kitten in Bosnia on his
intended bicycle trip around the world
(they’re currently stalled in Hungary) is the
best IG ever, and the Bodega Cats feed is
New York City art in itself. Here are my five
must-follow accounts; critics for The New
York Times will be sharing their own favor-
ites every week.

ALEX WEBB AND REBECCA NORRIS WEBB (@WEBB_NORRISWEBB)

The era’s great photographers embrace Instagram variously, and some not at all. Alex
Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb use it to resurface three-plus decades of work, including
some of Mr. Webb’s color-intense classics from places like Oaxaca, Mumbai or Havana.
Ms. Norris Webb, a lovely photographer as well, whose work in a more melancholy
register has honored the landscapes of her native South Dakota, is originally a poet; she
often selects the meditations of other writers for captions that gently illuminate our
present concerns. There’s something special in the quiet way all these elements click on
their shared Instagram, which is evidence, too, of a beautiful partnership.

PHYLLIS GALEMBO
(@PHYLLISGALEMBO)
We’re all getting used to masks now, and I’m
seeing some good ones out there —
handcrafted, made of interesting fabric patterns,
worn with panache. It’s a good moment to
remember how important masking is for both
personal expression and the ways in which
communities regulate their physical and spiritual
well-being in many traditions. Phyllis Galembo
has photographed masquerade for decades,
roaming from the Niger Delta to Mexico and
many places more, attentive to the ethics of her
presence and, as a result, earning remarkable
entree and trust. The photographs are fabulous.
ALEX WEBB PHYLLIS GALEMBO, VIA AXIS GALLERY

OLALEKAN JEYIFOUS KARA WALKER

(@KIDCADAVER) (@KARA_WALKER_OFFICIAL)
The architect-turned-artist Kara Walker’s “Drawings,” a big,
Olalekan Jeyifous is suddenly generous show of works on paper this
everywhere — murals, group spring at Sikkema Jenkins, in
shows, public commissions. Chelsea, should have been one of this
Together with Amanda Williams, season’s highlights. There were bold
he’s making the future Shirley new pieces — including a wild,
Chisholm monument on the macabre suite involving Barack
edge of Prospect Park, and he’ll Obama and Donald J. Trump — but
be in MoMA’s big upcoming even better, an abundance of
show on architecture and sketches and studio notes from the
blackness, “Reconstructions.” past decade and sometimes further
But his signature form is wild back, offering a fascinating view of
digital designs of urban futures how this fundamental American artist
that are both green and humane thinks and works. Well, it turns out
— the inverse of dystopia, that Ms. Walker is also good at
though he’s gifted in imagining Instagram. Her feed — a jumble of
that, too. They work on paper sketches, book recommendations,
and in virtual reality, and they photographs — is honest and
definitely pop on Instagram, conversational. It helps me think.
where he’s been posting KARA WALKER

alternative visions for the

buildings he sees around his
Brooklyn home.

OLALEKAN JEYIFOUS

LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN (@LAYLAHB)

In due course, I know that Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, a photojournalist, will get back on
the road and resume her global projects — notably her long, intimate engagement
with historic Saint-Louis in Senegal and its community of elder, sometimes forgotten,
studio photographers. She has also been pushing forward Mfon, the network of women
photographers of the African diaspora that she founded with Adama Delphine
Fawundu. At the moment, however, Ms. Barrayn is walking in Brooklyn, notably
Bedford-Stuyvesant — her lifelong home, and where I live. As I process the crisis, I find
her visual notes on my immediate surroundings more crucial than any faraway feed.
LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN

SHOW US YOUR WALL

FRANCIE BISHOP GOOD

Where Women and Artists of Color Set the Tone

By HILARIE M. SHEETS
“The work that I’m drawn to collecting
seems to correlate to my own work as an
artist,” Francie Bishop Good said of the col-
lection in the Upper West Side apartment
where she and her husband, David Horvitz,
live when they aren’t at their home base in
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “It’s very intuitive.”
For the foyer of their classic prewar
apartment, she said, “I wanted a powerful
statement piece instead of a table that peo-
ple put flowers on.” And she found one, an
Alison Saar sculpture of a nude woman,
coated in black coal and rising more than
eight feet tall atop a giant ball of yarn. They
had to rig the sculpture to the top of the ele-
vator cab to get it into the apartment, she
said during a tour of the couple’s collection
last month before social distancing was in-
stituted.
Ms. Good has traded with other artists
since her years at the Philadelphia College
of Art. She and her husband, who have two
children each from their first marriages, be-
gan collecting art together in the early
1990s. Ms. Good was largely attracted to
work by women and artists of color long be-
fore that kind of focus became popular. Mr.
Horvitz, a real estate developer, followed
her lead.
Throughout the apartment are bold, vi-
brant abstractions by artists including
Beatriz Milhazes, Madeline Denaro and
Elisabeth Condon. “I see something differ-
ent in this Condon every day, little weird ar-
eas,” Ms. Good said. She is also drawn to
work with an “outsider quality” and a sense
of humor, she said, pointing out paintings by
Scott Daniel Ellison and ceramics by Sally
Saul and Hilary Harnischfeger.
“This artist’s taken unique materials that
don’t go together — ceramic, crushed glass,
paper, wood — and put them together,
which has been very inspirational to me,”
said Ms. Good, whose own paintings, paired
with her clay sculptures, will be exhibited
online May 1 to 31 at the Mindy Solomon
Gallery in Miami, and this summer at Book-
stein Projects in New York.
Ms. Good was recently named head of the
board of the NSU Art Museum, part of Nova
Southeastern University, in Fort Lau-
derdale. In 2017, she and her husband made
a promised gift to the museum of 100 works,
by artists including Teresita Fernández and
Cindy Sherman from their collection of
more than 800 pieces. The exhibition “Tran-
sitions and Transformations” features
works they have donated to the museum
(currently closed because of the coro-
navirus crisis) by Mickalene Thomas, Sue
Williams and Cecily Brown. The exhibition
closes in January 2021.
“Each year we give them more,” said Ms.
Good. “It’s my backyard.”
These are edited excerpts from the con-
versation.
What led you to concentrate on art by
women?
I didn’t realize we were collecting women.
One day, I looked around and said, “God, 90
percent of this stuff is women.” Then I
started consciously focusing on women.
WINNIE AU FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Touch the nipples on
a Katie Stout ceramic
and a light turns on.
Francie Bishop Good in her
living room. On the wall,
from left, are her own piece,
“Not Raining” (2020), and
“Stadium” (2010), by
Elisabeth Condon. “I see
something different in this
Condon every day,” Ms.
Good said. On the coffee
table are, from left, an
orange pot by Jay Kvapil,
figures by an unknown
artist from the 1920s, and a
houselike sculpture by Sally
Saul.
Women are more apt to — I don’t want to
say air their dirty laundry, but show them-
selves and work on autobiographical
themes more easily than men. Like the Lou-
ise Bourgeois and Alice Neel. They’re por-
traits of other people, yet you can feel their
angst.
What was your first acquisition that wasn’t a
trade?
A Louise Nevelson, one of the “Mirror Shad-
ow” pieces. What I learned from that was:
Don’t spend your yearly budget on one
piece.
Are you still actively acquiring?
I’m trying not to collect that much anymore
because I’m so old, but it’s hard.
I just bought Katie Stout’s ceramic yellow
piece of a woman. You touch her nipples and
the light turns on. Lots of times I’ll follow an
artist and say that’s too expensive and then
two years later pay double the price. This
was that case.
Do you and David need to agree on things?
I’m sure I’ve bought things he’s hated. I re-
ally try not to follow trends or listen to any-
body. My poor kids, after I’m gone.
Are any of your children interested in your
collection?
No. I think their rebellion is being conserva-
tive. I’ve always had a lot of nudes. When
my daughter Lisa brought her first boy-
friend home, she was like, “Oh, geez.”
Do visitors find the work challenging?
We had a group that came to our house once
in Fort Lauderdale. We have Renée Cox’s
Last Supper scene [the headline-making
“Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” with a nude Ms.
Cox as Jesus]. They didn’t like that. But I
don’t think the work’s that edgy. That’s not
something I even think about.
C12 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Invite the Museum
Into Your Home
Homebound and feeling that art-lover wanderlust?
Here’s a guide to visiting some virtual art palaces.
Right, from top:
Screengrabs show paintings
at São Paulo Museum of Art,
on Google Arts & Culture;
the Uffizi Gallery virtual
tour includes portraits
depicting, from left, Grand
Duke Cosimo I (1543),
Lorenzo de’ Medici (1534)
and Cosimo the Elder de’
Medici (1519-1520). Below,
the Palace Museum in
Beijing, whose website and
app let you explore the
galleries and residences of
the Forbidden City in high
definition, including a
virtual tour of the Palace of
Longevity and Health.
IN TIMES OF ADVERSITY, we look to art to
give form to chaos. But where do you go
when the chaos keeps you from art en-
tirely? It will have to be online. As the coro-
navirus pandemic stretches into yet an-
other month, keeping arts institutions
closed across the globe, museums’ websites
are now posting traffic numbers that were
once unimaginable.
The Musée du Louvre in Paris has re-
ported a tenfold increase in web traffic,
from 40,000 to 400,000 visitors a day. Visits
to the websites of the National Gallery of
Art in Washington and the Courtauld Insti-
tute of Art in London are also up by huge
multiples. Audiences are seeking out arts
material for children — the Metropolitan
Museum of Art reports an elevenfold uptick
to #MetKids, its youth education initiative.
Remember just a decade ago, when the Met
raised hackles, within and beyond its walls,
for its ambitious digitization initiative, as if
it were dangerous to offer more than
400,000 high-resolution, free-to-download
images of the collection? No one’s saying
that now.
Should a museum aim to replicate online
the exact experience of visiting in person
the world’s great picture galleries and pal-
aces? They’ve been trying for two decades,
and the pictures have certainly gotten
crisper. In too many cases, virtual museum
walk-throughs remain unwieldy, with
herky-jerky navigation. Often information
is out of date. And there’s no coffee!
The truth is that a museum’s digital as-
sets can’t duplicate its brick-and-mortar
presence — and the best of them, the ones
I’ve selected here, do not try. Rather, they
regard a museum’s physical and digital ac-
tivities as complementary platforms of a
single mission. They take the ambition and
intelligence and public commitment they
bring to the galleries, and feed it into new
channels onscreen.
Google Arts & Culture
YOU ARE THERE, FOR A MINUTE When cultural
institutions shut in China, then Italy, and
then the rest of the world, museum boosters
blew the dust off a digital project some of us
had forgotten: Google’s Arts & Culture ini-
tiative, which promises virtual experiences
of the world’s great galleries with the same
360-degree views familiar from its Maps ap-
plication. (The effort is not wholly altruis-
tic: Google’s culture division, based in Paris
and part of a nonprofit arm of its parent, Al-
phabet, constitutes a big part of a major
“soft lobbying” effort to endear the search
giant to European antitrust regulators.)
Google has since partnered with hun-
dreds of new institutions, notably in Asia,
and now you can toggle from the British
Museum to the Sydney Opera House with
the flick of a browser tab. It had been a while
since I’d explored Google’s museum walk-
throughs, and they remain a poor cousin of
a real museum visit. The Hermitage in St.
Petersburg appears blown out by an atomic
flash, its collection of Rembrandts as grainy
as an Etch A Sketch. The walk-throughs can
also be years out of date: Google’s record of
the Musée d’Orsay’s Impressionist col-
lection looks nothing like it did when I last
visited in December.
Really, you don’t fire these up to scruti-
nize art. You do it for the same reason I pro-
crastinate by dropping the little yellow guy
in random spots on Google Street View: for
a quick, moderately pleasant immersion,
one that allows you to think, at least for a
minute or so, “I am there.”
With Google, therefore, concentrate on
museums whose architecture tends to visu-
al splendor, like the São Paulo Museum of
Art, whose painting collection hangs on
JASON FARAGO CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
free-standing glass easels designed by the
great Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi. Or
Berlin’s Neues Museum, housed in a
bombed-out Neoclassical structure reno-
vated by David Chipperfield: the gashed
walls and half-repainted frescoes are a de-
light, even if the Egyptian antiquities are
barely visible. And since surroundings have
the upper hand over individual works,
Google’s app is also ideal for a brief gambol
through world heritage sites, like the Palace
of Versailles or Delhi’s Red Fort, the main
residence of the Mughal emperors.
Museum Websites
UNSEEN GEMS OF A COLLECTION A few histori-
cal museums have built robust virtual walk-
throughs of their own — above all the Pal-
ace Museum in Beijing, whose website and
app allow you to explore the galleries and
residences of the Forbidden City in very
high definition. (The site has an English in-
terface, but information on individual ob-
jects is only in Chinese.) The Vatican Muse-
ums’ site has sufficient, if not mind-blowing,
immersive views of the Sistine Chapel and
Raphael’s rooms, while the Zacheta Na-
tional Gallery of Art in Warsaw has some of
the highest-definition renderings I’ve seen
of current contemporary museum exhibi-
tions.
For kids, the site Muséosphère offers
360-degree tours of the lushest rooms in 13
of Paris’s municipal museums, including
the Musée de la Vie Romantique and Musée
Carnavalet. The Uffizi in Florence has just
started its own virtual tour (of higher qual-
ity than the one Google hosts), and the Lou-
vre offers a 360-degree walk-through of its
Petite Galerie, a space for families and stu-
dents.
But the smartest museums are thinking
beyond the “virtual visit.” Since the coro-
navirus outbreak, the best on-the-fly digital
exhibition conversions I’ve yet seen come
from Estonia — the world leader of high-
tech living and governance, where the
Tallinn Art Hall has revamped its entire
spring program for the web. Instead of dubi-
ously “interactive” 360-degree views,
Tallinn Art Hall has produced high-resolu-
tion video walk-throughs shot from fixed
positions, within which you can click any
object to pause the pan and scrutinize each
sculpture or print.
It was once hard for museums, many of
them small nonprofits, to keep pace with
digital technology. A good number splurged
on virtual displays programmed in Flash
and other now disfavored protocols; others
saw the web only as a marketing tool for the
“real” museum offline. But costs have
dropped, software has gone open-source,
and several museums — like the Walters
Art Museum in Baltimore, the National Gal-
leries of Scotland in Edinburgh, and espe-
cially the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam —
have made huge strides in collection dis-
play.
These museums now provide high-defini-
tion pictures not only of their prized master-
pieces, but of the strange and revealing out-
liers that were once shut up in storage. They
offer multiple ways into a collection beyond
the curators’ taxonomies, and even let you
organize works of art yourself. (The Rijks-
museum and the Walters, like more and UFFIZI GALLERY
more museums, offer these high-resolution
images in “open access,” that is, with no ming have to operate as coequals. The mu- Treating the digital museum as coequal
copyright restrictions.) seum that understands this most fully is the to the physical museum means you can be
High-resolution JPGs have transformed Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis, which a nimble when disaster strikes, and the
the ethos of a museum like the Barnes decade ago rolled out the most aggressive Walker has already published pandemic-re-
Foundation in Philadelphia, which was once and accessible websites of any American lated articles and curated new video dis-
so technophobic it didn’t even allow color museum. The site is a networked treasure plays and playlists. Similarly nimble insti-
photography in catalogs. Now its digital col- house, where its collection and exhibition tutions include the Wellcome Collection, in
lection allows you to pull individual works displays mingle with a panoply of artistic London, which has curated a fascinating
out of the museum’s idiosyncratic ensem- digital display of quarantine imagery
and art-related content, like the Walker
bles, and to mix and match at your pleasure. across the centuries.
Reader, an editorial arm of the museum that
Because art is not just what’s on a muse- Finally, the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter
features debates on Indigenous art, or on
um’s walls. “Art” is a whole collection of ex- outside of Oslo, one of the smartest muse-
how museums respond to the #MeToo ums in Europe, needed just two weeks to in-
periences and ideas and principles, and a
museum’s digital and physical program- movement. troduce a whole new website that show-
THE PALACE MUSEUM
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C13

GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE

GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE

cases both virtual exhibition walk-throughs Above, screengrabs show a

and decades of performances. Each week bust of Queen Nefertiti, New
brings new footage: up soon are a 1982 per- Kingdom, 18th dynasty
formance by Joseph Beuys and a 1990 con- (circa 1340 B.C.), at the
cert by Yoko Ono. Neues Museum in Berlin, on
Google Arts & Culture. Left,
Streaming Video at the Tallinn Art Hall in
Estonia, Mihkel Ilus’s “The
CONCERTS, CONFABS, CURATORS COCKTAILS City of Gradov,” a wooden
What the Henie Onstad and the Tallinn Art recent installation.
Hall have figured out is that there is already
a killer app for museums: video. High-reso-
lution or low, robustly linked to collection in-
formation or tossed off from a smartphone,
video has offered us homebound museum-
goers a view of art that’s not just more intel-
ligent and more culturally significant than
360-degree immersion, but also a lot
cheaper.
No museum has used streaming video
more ambitiously than the Louisiana Mu-
seum of Modern Art, in the suburbs of Co-
penhagen, whose “Louisiana Channel” on
YouTube has racked up more than 100,000
subscribers who can discover interviews,
readings and performances by artists, au-
thors and scientists (almost all in English).
Many videos complement the museum’s
brick-and-mortar programming: the artists
Laurie Anderson, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Rachel TALLINN ART HALL
Rose and Trevor Paglen, each participated
in the Louisiana’s grand 2018 exhibition coronavirus shutdown — flooding the social ished, more reactive, more intimate, more Even the once oracular Museum of Modern
“The Moon” and spoke to the camera about network with drawing lessons, mini-lec- urgent. Art now lets its director, Glenn D. Lowry,
the art of lunar exploration. But the Louisi- tures, exhibition tours and concerts that At the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the kibitz with curators on Zoom, just like the
ana understands YouTube as much more give the museum a new, global public face. director Rein Wolfs has been walking rest of us working from home.
than a promotional tool; it’s a presentation The Pinacoteca di Brera, which has the best through the collection galleries with a sin- Today, some museums in China have re-
format in its own right, with room for the au- painting collection in hard-hit Milan, has gle cameraphone, riffing on paintings by opened and in May, Germany and other
thor Colm Toibin (riffing on a sculpture by produced more than five dozen videos in the Kokoschka or Newman as if he were talking countries where infections have waned will
Giacometti), the architect Balkrishna Doshi last month: short, not always with high pro- to a friend. The Frick Collection’s Friday- follow. American ones may be closed for
(on the evolution of architecture in India), duction values, but offering immediate con- evening “Cocktails With a Curator” series months more and are already facing ex-
and the musician Brian Eno (conducting a firmation that the work of the museum goes remotely pairs short lectures on Bellini, treme budget shortfalls. If this crisis
public singalong of “Cotton Fields”). They on. Bronzino or Holbein with drink recommen- teaches them that digital programming
can speak formally or informally, about the The best museum experiences online rec- dations (Polish vodka for Rembrandt’s cannot be neglected, it might also instruct
collection or their own work, at length or in ognize that different formats can have dif- “Polish Rider”). The J. Paul Getty Museum, them about the accomplishments that can
snippets. ferent tones and styles. Yes, a collection in Los Angeles, tossed off nearly a dozen come from necessity. Throw away your VR
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Syd- database should be as hi-res and authorita- poignant Facebook videos under the title dreams, spend $100 on a microphone and a
ney’s major art museum, has made a fast tive as possible. But new programming in a “Last Minute Michelangelo” in the last camera mount, hit the record button on
and impressive pivot to YouTube since the time of crisis can and should be less pol- hours before the staff left the museum. your smartphone, and speak directly to us.
C14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Books

11 New Books We’re Anticipating

Need more to read? Worthy
nonfiction and fiction works
and memoirs are arriving soon.
By JOUMANA KHATIB
A prequel to “The Hunger Games,” Bill Bu-
ford’s love letter to French cooking, a novel
that reimagines Hillary Clinton’s life, and
much more: Here are 11 books that editors
at The New York Times are anticipating.
‘THE ARAB WINTER: A TRAGEDY’
Noah Feldman (Princeton University,
May 12)
Was the Arab Spring a failure? There is a
sense that the protests across the Middle
East in 2011 failed to bring about any endur-
ing, positive change, except in Tunisia. But
Feldman, a Harvard professor, argues that
the uprisings marked a significant cultural
and political shift empowering people in the
region — even if they brought about tragic
outcomes in some countries, including the
Syrian war and the rise of the Islamic State.
‘THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES’
Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, May 19)
A villain becomes the hero of this “Hunger
Games” prequel, set in Panem 64 years be-
fore the events of Collins’s hugely popular
trilogy. Coriolanus Snow, whom “Hunger
Games” readers met as Panem’s brutal dic-
tator, is a young man eager to carve out his
own path to success and power.
‘A CHILDREN’S BIBLE’
Lydia Millet (Norton, May 12)
Twelve children and their parents are on va-
cation when a storm of biblical proportions
lashes the United States. The adults, al-
ready badly behaved before the storm, cope
with the apocalyptic circumstances
through drugs, drinking and sex. As their
reality begins to mirror the stories in a tat-
tered children’s picture bible, the children
run away, searching for peace and stability
amid disaster.
‘DIRT: ADVENTURES IN LYON AS A CHEF IN
TRAINING, FATHER, AND SLEUTH LOOKING FOR
THE SECRET OF FRENCH COOKING’
Bill Buford (Knopf, May 5)
Buford, whose best-selling book “Heat”
chronicled his quest to become a serious
cook, is back in the kitchen. Now, Buford, a
New Yorker writer, recounts the next step
in his culinary education: studying at the
Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, the
gastronomic capital of France and the gold
standard for chefs around the world.
There’s plenty for food lovers here, but the
book is also an envy-inspiring travelogue.
‘THE END OF OCTOBER’
Lawrence Wright (Knopf, Tuesday)
The parallels between Wright’s novel and
our present circumstances are sobering: In
“The End of October,” a deadly, highly
contagious virus is sweeping the world.
Wright, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter,
drew on copious research to imagine the
Topics for many social, economic and medical fallout from
such a pandemic, which makes for utterly
tastes: the Arab frightening reading.
Spring, French
cooking, politics, ‘LITTLE EYES’
Samanta Schweblin. Translated by Megan
immigration and an McDowell. (Riverhead, May 5)
eerily familiar virus.
Animal-shaped devices called kentukis
have become the new fad. The toy is the
conduit for a strange new relationship
between its owner and its “dweller,” a user
assigned at random to control the device.
Dwellers can see their owner’s
surroundings and hear them speak, raising
uneasy new ideas about surveillance,
intimacy and love. Schweblin, an Argentine
writer known for short stories and her novel
“Fever Dream,” examines these ideas in a
series of a fast-paced chapters focusing on
kentukis across the world: a dweller who
sees snow for the first time, a woman
Clockwise from top far left,
new books from: Curtis
Sittenfeld; Jia Lynn Yang;
Molly Ball; Lydia Millet; Bill
Buford; David Frum;
Suzanne Collins, Noah
Feldman; Samanta
Schweblin; Stephanie Danler
and Lawrence Wright.
House, fought sexism, harassment and
hypocrisy to become the most powerful
woman in American politics. As she writes
in the afterword, “If this book has a thesis, it
is that you needn’t agree with Nancy
Pelosi’s politics to respect her
accomplishments and appreciate her
historic career.”
‘RODHAM’
Curtis Sittenfeld (May 19)
Sittenfeld imagines how Hillary Clinton’s
life might have turned out if she had
declined Bill Clinton’s marriage proposal
and gone her own way. Dreaming up
alternate histories for real-life figures is
familiar territory for Sittenfeld; she gave
the same treatment to first lady Laura Bush
in “American Wife.” The novel could be fan
fiction for anyone who wishes the 2016
election had had a different result.
alienated from her artist boyfriend who
takes comfort in her toy and more. ‘STRAY’
Stephanie Danler (Knopf, May 19)
‘ONE MIGHTY AND IRRESISTIBLE TIDE: THE EPIC
Danler’s autobiographical first novel,
STRUGGLE OVER AMERICAN IMMIGRATION,
“Sweetbitter” — about a young waitress’s
1924-1965’
coming-of-age in New York City — was a
Jia Lynn Yang (Norton, May 19)
breakout hit, bringing her a level of fame
In 1924, Congress passed one of the most
rare for a debut writer. (Our reviewer called
restrictive immigration laws on record, a
the book “the ‘Kitchen Confidential’ of our
measure aimed at making the country
white, Protestant and Anglo-Saxon that
time.”) In “Stray,” her new memoir, Danler
examines her relationships with the figures
curtailed southern and Eastern Europeans
who shaped her, including an alcoholic
and barred people from nearly all of Asia.
mother, an absentee father and a married
Yang, a deputy national editor for The
lover.
Times, sketches the four-decade effort to
reverse the legislation, which lasted
‘TRUMPOCALYPSE: RESTORING
throughout a major world war and the
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY’
refugee crisis after the Holocaust, to create
a new standard for immigration equality — David Frum (Harper, May 26)
what ultimately became the 1965 A writer for The Atlantic and a longtime
Immigration and Nationality Act. Along the conservative, Frum is blunt in his criticism
way, she weaves in her own family’s story, of the president: “Trump’s negligence and
exploring how the idea of America as a land fecklessness are inflicting unimagined grief
of immigrants wasn’t always a given. and suffering on the United States.” Frum
subjects his previous views to examination
‘PELOSI’
to understand why positions he supported
Molly Ball (Holt, May 5)
led to Trump’s victory. In the second part of
Ball, a political correspondent for Time, the book, he offers sensible proposals for
traces how Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the where the country goes from here.

You’re Invited to Join THE BOOK of LONGINGS Virtual Book Club

Enjoy wordplay every day.
Hosted by #1 New York Times bestselling author SUE MONK KIDD
Share your thoughts & connect with readers around the country. nytimes.com/games
Learn more at thebookoflongings.com

Crossword Edited by Will Shortz

PUZZLE BY JOHN GUZZETTA
Two Not Touch ANSWERS TO
PREVIOUS PUZZLES
ACROSS 40 What a person 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 Haberdashery
in trouble — or
accessory performing on 14 15 16
stage — wants
8 Round 17 18
measures 41 Boll weevil, for
one
14 Homer with 19 20 21
one R.B.I., in 43 Unwanted
baseball lingo crowd sounds 22 23 24 25 26

16 Certain spuds 46 Kind of hickory

27 28 29 30 31
17 Clearheaded 49 Hebrew for
“father” 32 33 34 35
18 Swear at
53 Island
19 That’s so governed by 36
irritating! three different
20 Speed up countries 37

22 Demesne 54 Center of a 38 39 40 Put two stars in each row, column and region of the grid. No two stars may touch, not even diagonally.
maze Copyright © 2020 www.krazydad.com
25 Actress Fisher
57 Apothegms 41 42 43 44 45
27 The night before

Brain Tickler
on the day after, 58 Thou, for one 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
maybe 59 Things that are
28 Whom basilicas declared 53 54 55 56

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after: Abbr. Longstocking
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31 Carried the day 59 60
another country.
32 Dine quickly
36 Tree that’s DOWN 4/24/20

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oldest known life leader someone over PUZZLE BY WILL SHORTZ YESTERDAY’S ANSWER I don’t need to lift weights or do cardio, because I’m already in shape — specifically, a pear shape.
6 Castro the head, say 42 One of the
forms on earth 2 Joe Hardy’s
(4,800+ years) comrade letters of NATO,
girlfriend in the 24 Historic in the NATO
37 They have little
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brand names
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books
3 Wings
7 Locale
of the
2018 Winter
Olympics
destination in
County Kerry,
Ireland 44
alphabet
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2017 hurricane
KenKen ANSWERS TO
38 Reuters 8 Mock 26 Relative of a PREVIOUS PUZZLES
4 How die-hard
competitor defenders may blind, in poker 45 Go around
9 Pointed out, in
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in India “The Waltons”
10 Sides of
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE Pac-Man’s 29 ___ place 48 Head honcho
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E T T A W A N D S H Y essentially decimal) 50 Actor Scott of
B E A N A B O U T C U E 30 Inscribed pillars “Happy Days”
11 “Huh!”
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C O M P A R E D O O P S I E preparations bar? power Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each
T I L S I T A M U L E T heavily outlined box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or
division, as indicated in the box. A 4x4 grid will use the digits 1-4. A 6x6 grid will use 1-6.
I R A R E L O C A T I O N S Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles,
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 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 N C15

EVENING
7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00
What’s On Friday
2 WCBS Inside Edition (N) Entertainment MacGyver “Psy-Op & Cell & Merchant Magnum P.I. “The Night Has Eyes.” Blue Bloods “Hide in Plain Sight.” CBS 2 News at
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
(PG) Tonight The cast & Birds.” Mac is placed inside a fake Magnum searches for a stolen urn. Danny and Baez track a drug dealer. 11PM (N) Bernie Sanders; Brandi Carlile per- Two Beastie Boys ponder their past on
of Avengers. (N) prison cell. (N) (14) (N) (14) (N) (14) forms. (PG) (11:35) Apple TV Plus. And other New Yorkers
4 WNBC Access Hollywood NBC Nightly News The Blacklist “Nyle Hatcher.” The task Dateline NBC “Before Daylight.” A college student is found murdered. (N)News 4 NY at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy ponder their future in a documentary on
(N) (PG) With Lester Holt force takes on a cold case. (N) (14) 11 (N) Fallon Jonas Brothers; Lester Holt;
Chvrches. (N) (14) (11:34) PBS.org.
5 WNYW Extra (N) (PG) The Big Bang The- W.W.E. Friday Night SmackDown Fox 5 News at 10 (N) The Big Bang The- The Big Bang Modern Family
ory (PG) ory (PG) Theory A famous “Do It Yourself.”

What’s Streaming
female physicist. (PG)
7 WABC 2020 N.F.L. Draft N.F.L. team selections in the second and third rounds. Eyewitness News Jimmy Kimmel
at 11 (N) Live! Actor Seth
Rogen. (12:05)
9 WWOR Family Feud (N) Family Feud (N) CSI: Miami “Kill Clause.” Deadly jelly- CSI: Miami “Count Me Out.” An explo- Family Feud (PG) Family Feud (PG) Chasing News (N) The Simpsons TMZ Live (N) (PG)
(PG) (PG) fish are used as a weapon. (14) sion threatens agents’ lives. (14) (PG)
11 WPIX black-ish (PG) black-ish (PG) Penn & Teller: Fool Us “Virtual Reality.” Whose Line Is It Whose Line Is It PIX11 News at Ten (N) Seinfeld “The Seinfeld “The Friends (14)
(PG) Anyway? (14) Anyway? (14) Masseuse.” (PG) Ex-Girlfriend.”
13 WNET PBS NewsHour (N) Washington Week Firing Line With Somewhere South “It’s a Greens Great Performances Vivaldi’s The Four Amanpour and Company (N) MetroFocus
(N) Margaret Hoover Thing.” Collard sandwich; greens. (N) Seasons. (PG)
21 WLIW MetroFocus WealthTrack A Place to Call Home “Boom!” To Manor Born Hold the Sunset Death in Paradise (PG) MetroFocus World News Amanpour-Co
25 WNYE Film School Film-Maker (14) Lost LA (G) Build N.Y.C. Career Girl (1944). Frances Langford. Blueprint: N.Y.C. Made in New York Talks NYU Journalism MN Original (G)
31 WPXN NCIS: Los Angeles “Unspoken.” NCIS: Los Angeles (14) NCIS: Los Angeles (14) NCIS: Los Angeles “Defectors.” NCIS: Los Angeles (14) NCIS: LA
41 WFUT2 Cruise Ship Killers “DEANNA.” The Last 24 “Real Pet Cemetery.” Southern Fried Homicide (14) Trace of Evil F.B.I.: Criminal Pursuit (14) Killer Kids (14)
47 WNJU Minuto para ganar (N) (G) Cennet (N) (G) La Doña (N) (14) La reina del sur 2: Edición Noticiero 47 Noticias Titulares y más
48 WRNN Grow Hair Fast! Total Gym Marvin Gaye Best Knife Ever! Back Pain? Total Gym Mercy Ships Paid Program Paid Program Paid Program Aching Joints? APPLE TV PLUS

49 CPTV PBS NewsHour (N) Midsomer Mur. Midsomer Murders (Part 2 of 2) Doc Martin “Accidental Hero.” (9:33) The Kate “Joseph.” (PG) Sun Studio NHK Newsline From left, Mike Diamond, Adam Yauch and
50 WNJN One on One NJTV News Frankie Drake Mysteries (PG) Vera “Protected.” (PG) The Good Road NJTV News One on One World News Spike Jonze.
55 WLNY 2 Broke Girls 2 Broke Girls Dr. Phil (N) (PG) WLNY News at 9PM (N) Judge Judy (N) Judge Judy (PG) Mike & Molly Mike & Molly Ent. Tonight
63 WMBC Larry Elder World’s Great To be announced Paid Program BEASTIE BOYS STORY (2020) Stream on Apple
68 WFUT ¿Qué culpa tiene Fatmagül? Mustafá se entera de la verdad. (N) (14) Nosotros los. Nosotros los. Noticiero Univ. Vas con todo Lechuga le harán una broma a Dalilah. TV Plus. The two surviving members of the
PREMIUM CABLE Beastie Boys, Adam Horovitz and Michael
FLIX Beyond Borders (2003). Angelina A Better Life (2011). Demian Bichir. L.A. day laborer and The United States of Leland (2003). Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling. (R) (9:45) Frank Miller’s Sin City (2005). Jessica Diamond, walk an audience through their
Jolie, Clive Owen. (R) (5:45) son seek stolen truck. Emotionally resonant. (PG-13) Alba, Devon Aoki. (R) band’s history in this unconventional docu-
HBO My Brilliant Friend Run “Kiss.” Ruby is consumed by Stuber (2019). Cop recruits Uber driver to help hunt hero- Real Time With Bill Maher (N) (MA) We’re Here “Gettysburg, Pennsylvana.” Real Time With
thoughts of sex. (MA) (7:45) in dealer. Squeaks by on stars’ charm. (R) (8:20) (MA) Bill Maher (MA)
mentary. Think of it as a Beastie Boys TED
HBO2 Hall Pass (2011). Owen Wilson, Jason My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a Spanglish (2004). Tea Leoni. Laid-back chef with neurotic wife bonds with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). Kate Hudson, Talk: Directed by Spike Jonze, the film
Sudeikis. (R) (6:10) New Name (Subtitled-English) (MA) Mexican housekeeper. Smug, despite Sandler’s fumbling warmth. (PG-13) Matthew McConaughey. (PG-13) (11:15) shows the present-day Horovitz and Dia-
MAX . BlacKkKlansman (2018). John Da- Grudge Match (2013). Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone. Aging boxing The Lucky Ones (2008). Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins. Three returning sol- American Were- mond onstage, telling their story as archi-
vid Washington, Adam Driver. (R) (5:45) champions have one last rematch. Where’s the towel? (PG-13) diers take road trip to get home. Rings true. (R) (9:55) wolf
val footage and video are projected behind
SHO The Longest War America’s involve- Peppermint (2018). Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr. Woman seeks justice SCB30 Lucas Matthysse vs. John Boxing (10:47) Seven Pounds (2008). Will Smith, Ro-
ment in Afghanistan. (MA) (6:35) for family’s deaths. Vigilantism by the numbers. (R) (8:15) Molina Jr. sario Dawson. (PG-13) (11:35) them. (The documentary is an adaptation
SHO2 Semper Fi (2019). Marine buddies plan to bust one’s VICE COVID-19 in Homeland “The English Teacher.” Car- . Donnie Brasco (1997). Al Pacino, Johnny Depp. Undercover F.B.I. agent befriends over-the-hill of a stage show the two put on in 2019.) The
brother out of prison. Sweats testerone. (R) (6:45) Wuhan, China. rie needs one more favor. (MA) hit man. Crackling good. (R) setup allows for some entertainingly pecu-
STARZ The Intruder (2019). Dennis Quaid, Vida “Episode 1.” Vida “Episode 2.” Vida “Episode 3.” Vida “Episode 4.” Mari is publicly hu- Vida “Episode 5.” Vida “Episode 6.” Outlander “Monsters and Heroes.” liar moments, as when Horovitz interrupts
Meagan Good. (PG-13) (6:15) (MA) (MA) (8:36) (MA) (9:08) miliated. (MA) (9:44) (MA) (10:16) (MA) (10:50) (MA) (11:26)
footage of the band’s early shows, in which
STZENC Funny People (2009). Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen. Gravely ill comic mentors X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber. How Wol- . Saturday Night Fever (1977). John Travolta, Karen
and exploits his assistant. Lethally serious. (R) (6:31) verine came to be. Unmemorable hodgepodge. (PG-13) Lynn Gorney. (R) (10:50) his younger self is reading rap lyrics off a
TMC Second Act (2018). Jennifer Lopez, . Analyze This (1999). Mob boss has crisis of confi- Phenomenon (1996). John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick. Small-town Everyman transformed into tele- The Professor crumpled piece of paper. Turning from the
Vanessa Hudgens. (PG-13) (6:05) dence, goes into therapy. An offer you can’t refuse. (R) kinetic genius. The film, however, starts smart, finishes dumb. (PG) (9:45) (2018). (R) projected video to the audience with appar-
CABLE ent embarrassment, Horovitz asks, “Most
7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 rappers hold their rhymes in little pieces of
A&E Live PD “Live PD, 02.16.19.” (14) (5) Live PD: Rewind “Live PD: Rewind Live PD “Live PD, 04.24.20.” (N) (Live) (14) Live PD: Wanted (N) (14) Live PD “Live PD, paper, right?”
321.” (N) (14) 04.24.20.”
AHC I (Almost) Got Away With It (14) I (Almost) Got Away With It (14) I (Almost) Got Away With It (14) I (Almost) Got Away With It (14) I (Almost) Got Away With It (14) Almost, Away
AMC . Top Gun . Gran Torino (2008). Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley. Racist veteran in Detroit befriends Friday Night In w/ . Unforgiven (1992). Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman. Bloody revenge in Old
(1986). (PG) (5) Hmong family. Sleek muscle car of a movie. (R) The Morgans West. Peak Eastwood western, without good guys. (R)
APL Deadliest Catch: The Roughest Deadliest Catch: The Roughest Deadliest Catch: The Roughest Deadliest Catch: The Roughest Deadliest Catch: The Roughest Deadliest Catch
BBCA . The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen. (PG-13) Graham Norton . Lord of the Rings
BET ’Til Death Do Us Part (2017). Wom- We Belong Together (2018). Cassidey Fralin, Ross Fleming. Professor trying to rebuild life meets Martin (Part 1 of Martin (Part 2 of Martin (PG) Martin “Kill Him
an’s abusive ex tracks her down. (5) seductive new student. 2) (PG) 2) (PG) With Kindness.”
BLOOM Bloomberg Bloomberg Best of Bloomberg Daybreak With Bill Gross Bloomberg Big Bloomberg Best (N) Bloom. Tech. Dr. Ho SmartWash(tm)
BRV Shahs of Sunset “Country Fried Per- Shahs of Sunset “Behind the Episode Shahs of Sunset “The Persian Shore.” Watch What Hap- The Fast and the Furious (2001). Vin Diesel, Paul Walker. Undercover cop
sians.” (14) 811.” (N) (14) (N) (14) pens Live with illegal racers. Total drag, except for the car scenes. (PG-13)
CBSSN We Need to Talk World Series of Poker World Series of Poker World Series of Poker World Series of Poker Series of Poker
CMT Last-Standing Last-Standing Mom (14) Mom (14) Mom (14) Mom (PG) Mom (14) Mom (14) Beetlejuice (1988). Michael Keaton, Geena Davis. (PG)
CN Apple & Onion Wrld, Gumball Final Space (14) Final Space (14) Bob’s Burgers Rick and Morty American Dad American Dad Family Guy (14) Family Guy (14)
Metalocalypse GRASSHOPPER FILM

CNBC American Greed “The Most Hated American Greed “Just a Dollar and a American Greed “Wine, Women and American Greed “Deadly Opioids, American Greed “Fraud Collectors.”
American Greed
Man in America.” (PG) Scheme; Lousy Landlord.” (PG) Fraud.” (PG) Dirty Doctors.” (PG) Bill Mastro rigs bids. (PG) (PG) A scene from “The Hottest August.”
CNN Erin Burnett OutFront (N) Anderson Cooper 360 (N) Anderson Cooper 360 (N) Cuomo Prime Time (N) Cuomo Prime Time (N) Anderson Cooper
360 THE HOTTEST AUGUST (2019) Stream on PBS
COM Tosh.0 “Food Re- Tosh.0 “Yotta Life.” Tosh.0 “Nut Shot Tosh.0 “Blix the Tosh.0 (14) Tosh.0 “Misha.” John Mulaney: New in Town The com- Crank Yankers South Park “Tim- South Park “Pro- .org. New Yorkers sweat, sunbathe and
viewer.” (14) (14) Zach.” (14) Merman.” (14) (14) ic performs. (14) (14) my 2000.” fessor Chaos.” ponder the future in this documentary from
COOK Kids Baking Championship (G) Kids Baking Championship (G) Kids Baking Championship (G) Kids Baking Championship (G) Kids Baking Championship (G) Kids Baking the filmmaker Brett Story. Shot in New
CSPAN Coronavirus Briefings & Events Washington Journal Primetime (N) White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing Communicators Coronavirus Briefings & Events Briefings York City in the summer of 2017, the film
CSPAN2 Norwich Univ. Public Affairs Books About Pandemics Books About the U.S. Economy (9:25) Books About the Trump Administration
compiles interviews with people around the
CUNY Classic Arts Showcase (G) New York Times Laura Flanders DiverseCITY Theater: All the Economic Up America-World Democracy Now! Mr Hulots Hol.
city. They talk about their personal hopes
DIS Raven’s Home “On Bunk’d (G) (7:35) The Disney Family Singalong Celebri- High School Musical (2006, TVF). Zac Efron, Vanessa Raven’s Home (G) Just Roll With It Coop & Cami Ask Jessie (G) (12:10)
Edge.” (7:05) ties take on Disney tunes. (PG) Anne Hudgens. (10:45) (Y7) (11:15) the World and where they think the planet is headed.
DIY Beachfront Bargain Renovation Beachfront Bargain Renovation Beachfront Bargain Renovation Beachfront Bargain Renovation Beachfront Bargain Renovation Beachfrnt Reno That footage is paired with excerpts from
DSC Gold Rush: Parker’s Trail “Mine, Mo- Gold Rush “Blasting Gold.” A promising hard rock mine. (N) (14) Alaska: The Last Frontier “Kilcher Aussie Gold Hunters “Heartbreak and Gold Rush “Blast- writings by Zadie Smith, Annie Dillard and
ment, Machine.” (N) (14) Quarantine.” (N) (14) (10:06) Ambition.” (N) (PG) (11:06) ing Gold.” Karl Marx, which are read for narration by
E! . Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint. (PG-13) She’s All That (1999). Freddie Prinze Jr. (PG-13) (9:55) Sex and the City the Canadian actor Clare Coulter. In his
ELREY Chuey-Show El Rey Nation Halloween: Resurrection (2002). Jamie Lee Curtis, Brad Loree. (R) Compadres (2016). A hacker helps an ex-cop find the crime boss who framed him. (R) review for The New York Times, Glenn
ESPN 2020 N.F.L. Draft N.F.L. team selections in the second and third rounds. SportsCenter Kenny wrote that the combination adds up
ESPN2 High School Basketball 30 for 30 High School Basketball From Dec. 12, 2002. The Race All-Star Series to “a cinematic gift both simple and multi-
ESPNCL College Football (6) College Football From Nov. 6, 2004. College Football From Nov. 26, 2011. College Football layered, an intellectual challenge and an
FOOD Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive Diners, Drive emotional adventure.”
FOXNEWS The Story With Martha MacCallum Tucker Carlson Tonight (N) Hannity (N) The Ingraham Angle (N) Fox News at Night With Shannon Tucker Carlson
(N) Bream (N) Tonight
FREEFRM Family Guy (14) Family Guy (14) Family Guy (14) Family Guy (14) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Johnny Depp. (PG) The 700 Club (N) The Lost Boys
FS1 . Bull Durham (1988). Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon. (R) Greatest Games: M.L.B. Game 7. From Nov. 2, 2016. Football
FUSE All About the Benjamins (2002). Ice Cube. Freelance bounty hunter after lost lottery ticket. (R) The Parkers (PG) The Parkers (PG) The Parkers (PG) The Parkers (PG) The Parkers (PG) My Wife & Kids
FX Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018). Dylan O’Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster. Gladers enter deadly labyrinth. En- Get Out (2017). Daniel Kaluuya. Black boyfriend meets
(2015). Dylan O’Brien. (PG-13) (5) joyably overstuffed sequel. (PG-13) the parents. Exhilaratingly smart and scary. (R)
FXM Keeping Up With The Heat (2013). Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy. Fed and cop take on drug lord. Bullock-Mc- The Heat (2013). Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy. Fed and cop take on drug lord. Bullock-Mc-
Joneses Carthy chemistry carries day. (R) (7:40) Carthy chemistry carries day. (R)
FXX The Simpsons The Simpsons The Simpsons The Simpsons The Simpsons The Simpsons The Simpsons The Simpsons Bob’s Burgers Bob’s Burgers Family Guy (14)
FYI Top Gear “Beating Tanner.” (PG) Top Gear “Rut’s Show.” (PG) Top Gear “Police Cars.” (PG) Top Gear “Small Cars.” (PG) Top Gear (PG) (11:01) Top Gear (PG)
GOLF L.P.G.A. Tour Golf From Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles. P.G.A. Tour Golf From TPC Lousiana in Avondale, La.
GSN America Says America Says America Says Family Feud Family Feud Family Feud Family Feud Family Feud Family Feud Family Feud Family Feud
RAY BURMISTON/NETFLIX
HALL All Things Valentine (2015, TVF). (6) Christmas at Dollywood (2019, TVF). Niall Matter, Danica McKellar. Tulips in Spring (2016, TVF). Woman helps injured father run farm. Love Romance
HGTV HGTV Smart Home 2020 (N) (G) Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home Dream Home David Bradley, left, and Ricky Gervais.
HIST Ancient Aliens “The Prototypes.” Vari- Ancient Aliens “Aliens and the Presi- Ancient Aliens “The Taken.” Alien ab- Ancient Aliens “The Einstein Factor.” Ancient Aliens “Aliens and Sacred Ancient Aliens
ous human-like species. (PG) dents.” (PG) ductions claims. (PG) (9:02) (PG) (10:05) Places.” (PG) (11:05) (PG) (12:03) AFTER LIFE Stream on Netflix. “I still miss
HLN Death Row Stories (14) Death Row Stories “Love Kills.” Death Row Stories (14) Forensic Files Forensic Files Forensic Files Forensic Files Forensic Files Lisa,” Tony (Ricky Gervais) says near the
ID Married With Secrets “Missing in Who Killed Natalie Wood? The night Who Killed Chandra Levy? “Part One.” Who Killed Chandra Levy? “Part Who Killed Chandra Levy? “Part Who Killed Chan- start of Season 2 of this dark comedy se-
Alaska.” (14) that Natalie Wood drowned. (N) (Series Premiere) (N) Two.” (N) Three.” (N) dra Levy?
ries. The line is essentially a summary of
IFC Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half Two and a Half
Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) Men (14) the show’s premise: The first season began
LIFE The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of The King of with Lisa (Kerry Godliman) dying, leaving
Queens (PG) Queens (PG) Queens (PG) Queens (8:33) Queens (9:03) Queens (9:33) Queens (10:03) Queens (10:33) Queens (11:03) Queens (11:33) Queens (12:01) Tony to wrestle grief while carrying on life
LIFEMOV Baby Monitor Murders (2020). Na- Remember Me, Mommy? (2020, TVF). Natalie Brown, Sydney Meyer. New The Babysitter’s Revenge (2020, TVF). Bree Turner, Aviva Mongillo. Teenager Remember Me, in his English town. With little direction, he
talie Sharp, Jon Cor. (6) girl at private school may be the daughter a teacher abandoned. plots revenge girl who humiliated her family. Mommy?
started treating everybody with a comic
7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 level of contempt. He resolves to do better
LOGO Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family “An Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family Mama’s Family
(PG) (6:57) (PG) (7:28) “Soup to Nuts.” (PG) “Cat’s Meow.” (PG) Ill Wind.” (PG) (PG) “Fly Naomi.” (PG) “Santa Mama.” in Season 2 — with inconsistent success.
MLB M.L.B. Network Special Trouble With the Curve (2012). Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams. (PG-13) M.L.B. Tonight All-Time Games David Cone’s perfect game. From July 18, 1999. “With other shows of mine, people come up
MSG N.Y. Giants MSG 150-Home Knicks Rewind From March 2, 2020. MSG 150-Home N.Y. Giants Rangers Rewind From March 5, 2020. to me on the street, and they usually say, ‘I
MSGPL Islanders Rewind From Dec. 5, 2019. MSG 150-Home Devils Shorts Devils Rewind From March 7, 2020. Islanders Rew. love the show,’” Gervais said in a recent
MSNBC MSNBC Live: Decision 2020 (N) All In With Chris Hayes (N) The Rachel Maddow Show (N) The Last Word The 11th Hour Rachel Maddow interview with The Times. “But with this
MTV Twilight-Dawn The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012). Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson. (PG-13) Ridiculousness Ridiculousness Ridiculousness Ridiculousness Ridiculousness one — and this was before coronavirus —
NBCS Trackside Live! (4) Olympic Classics: Women’s Gymnastics Olympic Classics: Women’s Gymnastics From August 15-17, 2004. Gymnastics they come up to me and say, ‘I just want to
NGEO Lockup: New Jersey Lockup: Boston: Extended Stay Lockup: Boston: Extended Stay Lockup: Cincinnati Lockup: Oakland: Extended Stay Lockup Orange say, I lost my sister three weeks ago.’ ” He
NICK Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011). Voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie. (PG) Young Dylan SpongeBob Friends (14) Friends (14) Friends (14) Friends (14) Friends (14) added, “You suddenly realize, of course —
NICKJR Paw Patrol (Y) Blaze, Monster Bubble Guppies Blue’s Clues Peppa Pig (Y) Peppa Pig (Y) Paddington Peppa Pig (Y) Bubble Guppies Blue’s Clues Peppa Pig (Y) everyone’s grieving. And the older you get,
NY1 News/Evening News/Evening News/Evening News/Evening News/Evening News/Evening News/Evening News/Evening News All Night News All Night News All Night the more you’ve got to grieve.”
OVA . Overboard (1987). Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell. (PG) The Out-of-Towners (1999). Ohio couple in New York. Feeble remake. . The First Wives Club (1996). Diane Keaton. (PG)
OWN Black Women OWN 20/20 on OWN (14) 48 Hours: Hard Evidence (14) 48 Hours: Hard Evidence (14) 20/20 on OWN “The Killer Clown?” Hard Evidence
OXY Deadly Cults “Killers of Rulo.” (14) Dateline: Secrets Uncovered (N) Snapped “Alaina Mercer.” (PG) Snapped “Tameshia Shelton.” (PG) Snapped “Valerie Pape.” (PG) Dateline: Secr. What’s on TV
PARMT Two/Half Men Two/Half Men . Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Harrison Ford, Karen Allen. (PG) . Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). (PG) (10:20)
SCIENCE How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made How It’s Made WONDER WOMAN (2017) 8 p.m. on TNT. The
SMITH Air Disasters “Blown Away.” (14) Inside Buckingham Palace (PG) Secrets Unlock. Secrets Unlock. Aerial America “New Mexico.” (G) Inside Buckingham Palace (PG) Secrets Unlock. celebrity-laden online cover of John
SNY Oh Yeah . Oh Yeah . Mets Classics Johan Santana throws a no-hitter. Baseball Night Oh Yeah . Oh Yeah . Lennon’s “Imagine” recently orchestrated
STZENF FernGully: Last . Field of Dreams (1989). Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan. (PG) (7:45) McFarland, U.S.A. (2015). Kevin Costner, Maria Bello. (PG) (9:32) City of Ember (2008). (PG) (11:42) by Gal Gadot didn’t receive great reviews,
SUN Law & Order “Rubber Room.” (14) Law & Order “American Jihad.” Reli- Law & Order “Shangri-La.” High-school Law & Order “True Crime.” Dead rock Law & Order “Tragedy on Rye.” A mur- Law & Order “The but Gadot’s performance in the title role of
giously motivated murder. (14) love triangle. (14) singer. (14) derer is on video. (14) Ring.” (14)
this superhero blockbuster very much did.
SYFY . Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint. Voldemort lays a trap for Harry at the R.I.P.D. (2013). Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds. Heavenly police force hunts Futurama (14)
Triwizard Tournament. Ralph Fiennes makes a sublime villain. (PG-13) dead villains. Noisy nonsense. (PG-13) (9:55) (11:57) See her clobber bad guys alongside a World
TBS San Andreas (2015). Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino. Earthquake tears Cali- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017). Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana. Team unravels mystery of leader’s true parentage. ELEAGUE War I pilot played by Chris Pine, as she
fornia apart, brings family together. Shaky. (PG-13) (6:30) Strained sequel. (PG-13) moves through an origin story that sets up
TCM Hollywood Without Makeup (1965). . Double Indemnity (1944). Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck. Cain’s There’s Always Tomorrow (1956). Barbara Stanwyck. The Moonlighter (1953). Barbara the coming sequel, “Wonder Woman 1984.”
Marilyn Monroe, Kirk Douglas. adulterous insurance murderers. Brilliantly handled, the Wilder way. Stella Dallas rides again. Well acted but the old slush. Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray. (11:45)
GABE COHN
TLC 90 Day Fiancé: What Now? (14) 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days Lisa & Usman plead their case. (N) 90 Day Fiancé 90 Day Fiancé: Self-Quarantined 90 Day Fiancé 90 Day Fiancé
TNT Bones “The Knight on the Grid.” The l Wonder Woman (2017). Gal Gadot, Chris Pine. Cloistered Amazon warrior discovers the world. Fizzy, witty block- Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Ben
Widow’s Son serial killer. (14) buster. (PG-13) Stiller, Robin Williams. (PG) ONLINE: TELEVISION LISTINGS
TRAV Paranormal Caught on Camera Paranormal Caught on Camera Paranormal Caught on Camera Paranormal Caught on Camera Paranormal Caught on Camera Paranormal Ca. Daily television highlights, recent reviews by
TRU Tacoma FD (MA) Tacoma FD (MA) Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes Inside Jokes The Times's critics, series recaps and what to
watch recommendations. nytimes.com/tv
TVLAND Andy Griffith Andy Griffith Love-Raymond Love-Raymond Love-Raymond Love-Raymond Two/Half Men Two/Half Men Two/Half Men Two/Half Men Two/Half Men
USA . Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint. Voldemort lays a trap for Harry at the Modern Family Modern Family Modern Family Modern Family Modern Family
Triwizard Tournament. Ralph Fiennes makes a sublime villain. (PG-13) (PG) (9:55) (PG) (10:25) (PG) (10:56) (PG) (11:26) (PG) (11:57)
Definitions of symbols used in Ratings:
VH1 RuPaul’s Drag Race (14) (6:30) RuPaul’s Drag Race “Choices 2020.” (N) (14) RuPaul’s Drag Race “Celebrity Edition 101.” (N) (14) RuPaul Drag The Devil Wears Prada (2006). the program listings: (Y) All children
VICE Kingpin: Extended Version (1996). Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid. (R) . House Party (1990). Teenager’s hermetically sealed world. Buoyant, perceptive comedy. (R) Danny’s House ★ Recommended film (Y7) Directed to older children
✩ Recommended series (G) General audience
WE Mama June: From Not to Hot “Family Mama June: From Not to Hot (14) Mama June: From Not to Hot Mama Mama June: From Not to Hot Mama Mama June: From Not to Hot Mama Mama June: From ● New or noteworthy program (PG) Parental guidance
Crisis: The Stakeout.” (14) hits rock bottom. (N) (14) hits rock bottom. (14) (10:01) hits rock bottom. (14) (11:01) Not to Hot (N) New show or episode suggested
WGN-A Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Last-Standing Married . With (CC) Closed-caption (14) Parents strongly cautioned
(HD) High definition (MA) Mature audience only
YES YES We’re Here NY Liberty Draft M.L.B. From May 5, 2019. YES We’re Here NY Liberty Draft History of Yank.
C16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

“
####
WHIPSMART AND WICKEDLY FASCINATING
HUGH JACKMAN IS STELLAR...ALLISON JANNEY IS AMAZING ”
“Jackman gives a “ Janney employs her
CAREER-HIGH PERFORMANCE” FLAMBOYANT BRAVADO”
“ THE BEST WORK OF JACKMAN’S CAREER
JANNEY IS ASTONISHING”
“JACKMAN IS BETTER THAN EVER “MASTERFUL…A DIABOLICALLY
JANNEY IS EXCELLENT” SMART AMERICAN CRIME STORY”
“ THE PERFORMANCES COULDN’T BE BETTER
JACKMAN AND JANNEY ARE BRILLIANT
Geraldine Viswanathan is excellent...Ray Romano is perfect”
“JACKMAN IS DARKLY “MESMERIZING “GRIPPING…DARK, “SUPERB...
CHARISMATIC” CHARACTER STUDIES” GLITTERING SURPRISES” JACKMAN IS SUBLIME”

APPALLINGLY FUNNY…IRRESISTIBLE…DELICIOUS
“
Jackman at his best…Janney is lethally good”
AN HBO FILM BASED ON A TRUE STORY

SATURDAY AT 8
AND STREAMING SOON ON
 ONLINE EDUCATION

Learning
A SPECIAL REPORT FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
ON EDUCATION

HIGHER EDUCATION HIGHER EDUCATION GRADES K-12 LIFELONG LEARNING

Will online instruction College presidents from School districts scramble Organizations beyond
change the college Spelman and C.C.R.I. to cope and keep students’ schools have flipped the
experience forever? reflect on the new reality. learning on track. online education switch.
BY JO N MA R C U S | PAG E 4 PAG E 5 BY C HRI S BERDI K | PAG E 6 BY T E D LOOS | PAGE 9

Changing Course
Like a storm at sea, the coronavirus has brutally pushed
schools in a new direction: providing quality online
learning to students of all ages.

ILLUSTRATION BY ORI TOOR

L2 NY THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

Bulletin Board

From Nerds to Heroes

When the New York Youth Symphony had
to cancel its spring concert at Carnegie
Hall because of the coronavirus, its mem-
bers decided to collaborate on at least one
piece, remotely.
There was no question who would record
and edit the performance of this compli-
cated work — the second movement from
VOICES Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, “Titan” — per-
FROM THE formed in isolation by each of the orches-
tra’s 71 members: Raina Tung. The video
FRONT LINES
kid.
“I’m always that person people go to
when they want to make their video,” said
“When we first went
Ms. Tung, a senior at New Explorations
out, and were Into Science, Technology and Math High
distributing all these School in Manhattan and a violinist in the
Chromebooks on orchestra, who has had her own YouTube
the fly, we thought channel since she was in eighth grade.
about just having it As educators try to cope with the disrup-
be optional, ex- tion caused by the pandemic, they have
tended learning. come to rely on their in-house experts: AV
[But then] we nerds, the longstanding victims of popular-
agreed that kids culture persecution.
need to be in class, “They are absolutely unsung heroes,”
so to speak. This is said Benny Caswell, a longtime adviser to
school until further an AV club (motto: “We Make Geeks”) at a
notice.” Pamela boys’ school in Australia and a regional
Swanson, superin- manager for the audiovisual industry asso-
tendent, Westmin-
ster (Colo.) Public
Schools

“We’re creating a
feedback loop so
STUDY ABROAD ASSOCIATION
we make sure that
we’re seeing our
International Exposure, Without the Travel situation clearly. We
said, ‘Let’s do this in
On the agenda for The coronavirus pandemic has brought that’s not enough, and they are exploring Soon they’ll start coordinating class- baby steps.’”
virtual study study-abroad programs to a halt on college ways to bring international exposure to room exchanges, in which professors from Mackey Pender- RAINA TUNG
abroad programs campuses across the country, but it might their domestic programs. two countries work together to develop a grast, superintend- Raina Tung, a student and violinist with a New
are collaborations start a new era in higher education. Christian Alyea and Leonardo Gubinelli, curriculum and have their students collab- ent, Morris (N.J.) York youth orchestra, is also the video kid.
like classes in two Support for virtual study abroad has founders and directors of the Study Abroad orate throughout the semester. School District
countries that been growing in recent years as a way to Association, are making lemonade out of They also plan to develop 360-degree
work together expose more students to international ex- coronavirus lemons and moving swiftly to videos that will let students drop into cities ciation AVIXA, which gives college schol-
“Online education is arships to students with AV skills.
and 360-degree periences without the cost — and some- develop virtual study abroad options for around the globe.
videos that allow using digital tech- “Their almost innate ability to grasp the
times risk — of actual travel. partner colleges and universities. Richard Johnson, a professor at Harper nologies to trans-
“visits” to cities concepts of technology is something older
Only about 11 percent of students in asso- “With crisis comes innovation and also College, near Chicago, plans to incorporate form the learning
around the globe. generations just don’t have,” he said.
ciate or bachelor’s degree programs study opportunity,” Mr. Alyea said. videos from Rome in a fall humanities experience. That is Take Jonathan Boring. A senior at Ma-
abroad at some point, according to the lat- Already they are pairing professionals class. not what is happen- rina High School in Huntington Beach,
est data from the Institute of International abroad with professors in the United States Such experiences “are going to set the ing right now. What Calif., he leads the AV team for his church’s
Education. to lead sessions about Mayan hiero- new normal in education,” Mr. Gubinelli is happening is we youth group, which has connected locked-
Many higher education leaders think glyphics, Italian cooking and city tours. said. TARA GARCÍA MATHEWSON had eight days to down congregants remotely for weekend
put everything we services and sermons — adding polished
do in class onto panoramic introductions and even an ani-
Zoom.” Vijay Govin- mation to precede the story of Joshua.
darajan, professor, “If you don’t have the sound guy, no one
Tuck School of in the congregation can hear you,” said Mr.
SPELMAN COLLEGE PRESIDENT Boring, who has been getting paid for edit-
Business at Dart-
mouth ing videos since he was 13. And with so
‘Even if students had access to good Wi-Fi, the many people turning online, he said,
“there’s a high demand” for people with
“The beauty of a
latest-model laptop and a room of their own, the loss residential educa-
knowledge like his.
Technology “is all we have right now,”
of friends, face-to-face relationships with teachers tion has never been
more apparent to
Ms. Tung said. “These types of online skills
are much more respected. Now it’s defi-
and mentors, and a living, breathing community people.” Michael
Roth, president,
nitely more quote-unquote ‘cool’” to have
them.
was profound.’ – MARY SCHMIDT CAMPBELL, PAGE 5 Wesleyan Univer-
sity
And after this, Mr. Boring said, “we won’t
be called nerds anymore.” JON MARCUS
SPELMAN COLLEGE

Virtual Recruiting
With campus visits canceled during the co- Which Colleges Were Most Prepared to Move Online?
ronavirus, colleges and universities need When essentially all higher education in the United States was forced to convert
other ways to encourage admitted stu- to digital classrooms, some types of institutions had more experience than others.
dents to enroll. One strategy: Enlist cur-
rent students to make videos giving a A SHIFT ALREADY UNDERWAY DISTANCE LEARNING SCORECARD
glimpse into campus life.
Percentage of colleges in 2018, by type and size, that were
That’s why Olivia Lynch, a third-year 2012 ENROLLMENT
better prepared to convert to all-online studies.
medical student at the University of Roch- 20.9 million students
ester, was doing an impression of Chris BETTER PREPARED: schools with
Harrison one recent evening. Mr. Harrison 2018 more than 1,000 online students
is the host of “The Bachelor,” and on Mon- 19.9 (thus extensive support staff) or
days when the show aired, Ms. Lynch and a
having 25 percent or more of NOT WELL
few friends piled onto her sofa to watch.
In the seven years after their students online PREPARED
Having peers who care about life beyond
the government began BY TYPE
medicine was one reason Ms. Lynch chose PETE D’AMATO
tracking distance At least 2 but 53% of these schools 47%
the University of Rochester.
learning, national less than 4 years
“It’s a lot of really down-to-earth people
who want to be doctors because they know
how to talk to people, not because they’re
college enrollment
dropped by more than
one million students.
Four-year (or
more) colleges
47 53
The Captain of Parties
really good at chemistry,” she said. “I
(It tends to go down in Before social distancing became the norm, The comedian
mean, they probably are also really good at
a good economy; in Public 72 28 a weeknight for the comedian Yoni Lotan Yoni Lotan
chemistry. But there’s a lot of humanism in
addition, demographic 15 M might have included a late-night improv performing at a
the curriculum and in the people who go
changes have meant show or character showcase at a bar in remote birthday
here.” 41 59
fewer high school Private for-profit Brooklyn. celebration last
In Ms. Lynch’s video, her friends knock
graduates.) Now, every night, he dresses up as a sea month from his
on her apartment door and nervously in- Private not-for- 31 69 Brooklyn
captain to sit at home in front of his laptop,
troduce themselves, like contestants on profit colleges apartment.
hosting children’s birthday parties.
the show. Then they flip the script, an-
Like Mr. Lotan, some clowns and magi-
nouncing that everyone watching — ad- BY ENROLLMENT
97% of these schools 3 cians are offering their services, some-
mitted students — gets one of the show’s 20,000+ times free, to children celebrating remotely.
coveted roses.
A Brooklyn-based company called Crazy
The university, in upstate New York, 90 10
Even so, the number 10,000–19,999 Science Show that once performed in
plans to compile a montage of student vid-
of students engaged schools has launched $10-per-family birth-
eos and email them to prospective stu- 10 M
in online learning rose 84 day parties with scientific demonstrations
dents. 5,000–9,999
by 1.6 million — to that teach basic concepts like pressure.
Other schools are taking similar ap-
more than a third of Camp, a children’s toy store, transformed
proaches. Texas Christian University has 35 65 in-store events it once hosted into online
all students. Almost 1,000–4,999
asked students to put together videos parties to stay connected with customers.
about life on the Fort Worth campus. And half of them were
taking all of their 37 63 Birthday celebrations like those Mr.
at Tulane, students are sending in videos Under 1,000
classes online. 7.0 Lotan hosts are free, though Camp is now
describing what they love and miss about also booking paid corporate parties and
the university. CAROLINE PRESTON private birthdays.
BY NUMBER OF STUDENTS AFFECTED
TOTAL
Measured by total students in the groups below, most attended During one party, Mr. Lotan shouted the
5.4
schools that were at least somewhat prepared to go all-digital. names of 11 birthday boys and girls and
5M threw in a topical reference to Dr. Anthony
20,000+ 7.2 million students Fauci, the director of the National Institute
enrollment of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (It’s
STUDENTS TAKING 3.7
SOME CLASSES ONLINE hard to know whether a joke landed when
10,000–19,999 4.2
NOT WELL your audience is on mute.)
2.8 PREPARED He then introduced “Counselor” Nora
3.3
5,000–9,999 3.0 Total: 3.5 million Gustuson, who sang and told stories, before
2.6 out of 19.9 million Mr. Lotan returned to close the show.
ALL CLASSES ONLINE 1.6 nationwide To develop his “Captain Yoni” character,
1,000–4,999 Mr. Lotan had to make do with what he had
at home. Fortunately, he has a closet
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE 2012 ’14 '16 '18 Under 1,000 0.2 stuffed with clothing and props from com-
AND DENTISTRY
edy shows and videos.
Olivia Lynch, foreground, attends the He said it’s the equivalent of being a
University of Rochester medical school. Her Source: analysis of Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data by Julia Seaman, Bay View Analytics THE NEW YORK TIMES doomsday prepper with their cans of food.
video, made with friends, is being used to help “My 1,000 costumes, finally.”
encourage prospective students to enroll. Bulletin Board was produced with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit independent news organization covering education. PETE D’AMATO
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 NY L3

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L4 NY
College Students’ Voices
We asked college students how
the change to online instruction
has affected them. The following
comments have been edited and
condensed.
I was studying abroad in Buenos
Aires and was sent home after 17
days. I am now living at home,
taking classes in Spanish about
Argentina online and struggling to
get a refund for room and board
from my study abroad program.
However, all in all I have been
incredibly lucky as no one in my
family is sick, and I’m not worried
about where my next meal or
paycheck is coming from.
– Pearl Sullivan, Atlanta,
Elon University
I’m an international student, so I
had to go home. The time differ-
ence is nine hours, so all my
classes are at night and extend into
the early morning. I’m studying at
desks I share with my brother and
dad. My campus bookstore is offer-
ing to ship my textbooks for free,
but it’ll take months for them to
reach me. – Amina Elmasry, Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, Northwest-
ern University
My schooling was online already.
The difference is now being faced
with food and financial insecurity
and still being expected to turn in
all homework, study topics that are
all pretty disturbing (for social work
master’s degree) and get projects
done on time. – Sonya Davis, San
Diego, Rutgers University
My attention span at home is a lot
shorter than it is at school since my
house was not created to be a
school environment. Every time I
have a class or I want to get some
homework done, there’s always
some kind of distraction. – EJ
Onah, Ithaca, N.Y., SUNY Albany
I would so much rather be back in
class. Online courses are more
work that the normal classes. It’s
also harder to get feedback on you
work. The professors and T.A.s are
doing the best they can to support
“office” hours, but it’s just not the
same. I can’t wait to be back in
class. – Howard Lukk, Los Angeles,
University of California, Santa
Barbara
I am a biology student with the
intention of going into medicine
after graduation. One of the most
important parts of our undergrad
education are science labs, which
give us practical experience and
application of the difficult concepts
we learn in our lecture courses.
Due to the outbreak, my organic
chemistry lab has had to go online,
which is essentially an impossible
undertaking. All of us are missing
out on this essential process of
synthesizing our own reagents and
running a chemical reaction, re-
placed by this poor substitute of
watching videos and doing work-
sheets. – Andrei Robu, Greenville,
S.C., University of South Carolina,
Columbia
My university gave me three days to
move out of my dorm. With my
parents living 10 hours away, it was
terrible circumstances. I had no car
to put everything I owned. My
boyfriend’s family came in a clutch
and helped me move out and let
me stay in a spare bedroom of
theirs. If not for his family, I would
have had no where to stay. The day
after I moved my stuff out, Whitmer
announced a shelter in place order
to start the next day at midnight. I
called my parents, and my dad
drove 20 hours round trip to get me
home. – Karen Larss, Iron Moun-
tain, Mich., Western Michigan
University
I am a 55-year-old man who takes
two classes per semester after work
towards a TESL degree: teaching
English as a second language. I
enjoy the classroom experience. It
is how I effectively learn. Listening
to live lectures, asking questions,
and speaking with other students
about assignments and concepts.
Both my classes went online, and I
knew immediately that I would have
to drop one of them as I was having
trouble with the material in a nor-
mal classroom setting. I knew that I
would not be successful sitting in
my living room with all the distrac-
tions of home around me while
trying to focus on a tough subject.
– Kent Shimizu, Santa Clarita,
Calif., California State University,
Northridge
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Higher Education
Transforming Higher Ed?
Covid-19 is unlikely to forever alter the college
experience. But some virtual tools might stay.
By JON MARCUS
A professor at Loyola University New
Orleans taught his first virtual class from
his courtyard, wearing a bathrobe and
sipping from a glass of wine. Faculty at
Lafayette College, in Easton, Penn.,
trained in making document cameras at
home using cardboard and rubber
bands.
Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y., set
up drive-up Wi-Fi stations for faculty
members whose connections weren’t re-
liable enough to let them upload material
to the internet. And students in a musi-
cology course at Virginia Tech were as-
signed to create TikTok videos.
The disruption caused by the coro-
navirus pandemic has prompted cob-
bled-together responses ranging from
the absurd to the ingenious at colleges
and universities struggling to continue
teaching even as their students have re-
ceded into diminutive images, in dire
need of haircuts, on videoconference
checkerboards.
But while all of this is widely being re-
ferred to as online higher education,
that’s not really what most of it is, at least
so far. As for predictions that it will trig-
ger a permanent exodus from brick-and-
mortar campuses to virtual classrooms,
all indications are that it probably won’t.
“What we are talking about when we
talk about online education is using dig-
ital technologies to transform the learn-
ing experience,” said Vijay Govindara-
jan, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck
School of Business. “That is not what is
happening right now. What is happening
now is we had eight days to put every-
thing we do in class onto Zoom.”
There will be some important lasting
impacts, though, experts say: Faculty
may incorporate online tools, to which
many are being exposed for the first
time, into their conventional classes.
And students are experiencing a flexible
type of learning they may not like as un-
dergraduates, but could return to when
it’s time to get a graduate degree.
These trends may not transform
higher education, but they are likely to
accelerate the integration of technology
into it.
This semester “has the potential to
raise expectations of using these online
resources to complement what we were
doing before, in an evolutionary way, not
a revolutionary way,” said Eric Frede-
ricksen, associate director for higher ed-
ucation at the Center for Learning in the
Digital Age at the University of Roches-
ter. “That’s the more permanent impact.”
Real online education lets students
move at their own pace and includes
such features as continual assessments
so they can jump ahead as soon as
they’ve mastered a skill, Dr. Frede-
ricksen and others said.
Conceiving, planning, designing and
developing a genuine online course or
program can consume as much as a year
of faculty training and collaboration with
instructional designers, and often re-
quires student orientation and support
and a complex technological infrastruc-
ture.
“Not surprisingly, when we really do
This article was published in cooperation
with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news
organization that covers education.
this, it does take more than seven or
eight days,” Dr. Fredericksen said wryly.
If anything, what people are mistaking
now for online education — long class
meetings in videoconference rooms, pro-
fessors in their bathrobes, do-it-yourself
tools made of rubber bands and card-
board — appears to be making them less,
not more, open to it.
“The pessimistic view is that [stu-
dents] are going to hate it and never
want to do this again, because all they’re
doing is using Zoom to reproduce every-
thing that’s wrong with traditional pas-
sive, teacher-centered modes of teach-
ing,” said Bill Cope, a professor of educa-
tion policy, organization and leadership
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign.
Undergraduates already seemed luke-
warm toward virtual higher education;
only about 20 percent took even one on-
‘We had eight days to put
everything we do in class onto
Zoom.’
line course in the fall of 2018, the consult-
ing firm Eduventures estimates.
If they didn’t like that, they definitely
don’t like what they’re getting this se-
mester.
More than 75 percent said they don’t
think they’re receiving a quality learning
experience, according to a survey of
nearly 1,300 students by the online
exam-prep provider OneClass. In a sepa-
rate poll of 14,000 college and graduate
students in early April by the website
niche.com, which rates schools and col-
leges, 67 percent said they didn’t find on-
line classes as effective as in-person
ones.
Among college-bound high school sen-
iors, fewer than a quarter said in Decem-
ber that they were open to taking even
some of their college courses online,
Eduventures reported; by the end of
March, after some had experienced vir-
tual instruction from their shutdown
high schools, fewer than one in 10 polled
by niche.com said they would consider
online college classes.
Sentiments like these suggest there’s
little likelihood that students will desert
their real-world campuses for cy-
berspace en masse. In fact, if there’s a sil-
ver lining in this situation for residential
colleges and universities, it’s that stu-
dents no longer take for granted the ev-
eryday realities of campus life: low-tech
face-to-face classes, cultural diversions,
libraries, athletics, extracurricular activ-
ities, in-person office hours and social in-
teraction with their classmates.
“The beauty of a residential education
has never been more apparent to peo-
ple,” said Michael Roth, the president of
Wesleyan University.
But advocates for true online instruc-
tion say that students’ experience of tak-
ing courses on their own schedules over
mobile platforms may come back to
them later, when they’re ready to move
on to graduate or professional educa-
tions.
Online higher education “is a thin diet
for the typical 18-year-old,” said Richard
Garrett, the chief research officer at Edu-
ventures. “But today’s 18-year-olds are
SHONAGH RAE
tomorrow’s 28-year-olds with families
and jobs, who then realize that online can
be useful.”
Already, more than half of American
adults who expect to need more educa-
tion or training after this pandemic say
they would do it online, according to a
survey of 1,000 people by the Strada Edu-
cation Network, which advocates con-
nections between education and work.
It isn’t entirely students who will move
this needle, observers say. It’s also fac-
ulty.
Even those who had long avoided go-
ing online have had to do it this semester,
in some form or other. And they may
have the most to learn from the experi-
ence, said Michael Moe, chief executive
of GSV Asset Management, which fo-
cuses on education technology.
Along with their students, faculty
were “thrown into the deep end of the
pool for digital learning and asked to
swim,” Mr. Moe said. “Some will sink,
some will crawl to the edge of the pool
and climb out and they’ll never go back
in the pool ever again. But many will fig-
ure out what to do and how to kick and
how to stay afloat.”
If there’s anyone who’s banking on
this, it’s the ed-tech sector. More than 70
percent of such companies have been of-
fering products and services to schools
and colleges free or at steep discounts
this semester, anticipating sales later, ac-
cording to the consulting firm Produc-
tive.
Cengage, for example, is providing
free subscriptions to its online textbooks,
and says it has seen a 55 percent in-
crease in the number of students who
have signed up for one. Coursera is pro-
viding 550 colleges and universities with
free access to its online courses.
“Administrators and educators are re-
framing their attitudes,” said John
Rogers, education sector lead at the $5
billion Rise Fund, which is managed by
the asset company TPG and invests in ed
tech. “That really is the difference-
maker. The pace of adoption of those
tools will accelerate.”
People resist new ideas until external
shocks force them to change, said Dr.
Govindarajan, who cites as an example
the way World War II propelled women
into jobs that had traditionally been done
by men. “We are at that kind of inflection
point.”
Faculty, he said, will ask themselves,
“‘What part of what we just did can be
substituted with technology and what
part can be complemented by technol-
ogy to transform higher education?’”
Universities should consider this se-
mester an experiment to see which
classes were most effectively delivered
online, he said — big introductory
courses better taught through video-re-
corded lectures by faculty stars and with
online textbooks, for example, which
could be shared among institutions to
lower the cost.
Students who want classes best pro-
vided face to face, such as those in the
performing arts or that require lab work,
would continue to take them that way.
“Let’s take advantage of this moment
to start a larger conversation” about the
whole design of higher education, Dr.
Govindarajan said. “We had better not
lose this opportunity.”
I do enjoy being able to wake up
later because now I just have to log
in to a class rather than get ready
for an entire day. I can also sleep
more, but I still miss the in-person
interactions going to class on
campus provides. I’m also worried
how moving online is going to
impact classes that require se-
quential learning or classes that
assume I acquired skills already
learned in a prior class. – Kate
Carniol, Great Falls, Va., Syracuse
University
As a senior, transitioning to online
learning has been nothing but
difficult. Sometimes I’m not even
motivated to do my work. I am a
good student, I have a 3.5 gpa but
everything is on you now. – Casey
Malone, Milford, Conn., Westfield
State University
Being at college, I was able to
forget the sometimes-traumatizing
moments I lived through as a
teenager. But now, every part of
my childhood home reminds me of
the past I’ve tried very hard to
move on from. I know I should be
grateful simply to have a roof over
my head and relative financial
security at a time like this, but it’s
hard not to let myself get sucked
down the rabbit hole of my high
school mental health challenges
that seemed so far gone while I
was living on my own at college. –
Kelsey Bonham, Washington,
Colgate University
As a theater major, the online
curriculum poses particular chal-
lenges for my classmates and I,
since much of our learning is highly
kinesthetic. In my Presentational
Styles acting class, we’re perform-
ing Shakespeare’s Macbeth via
Zoom, and the project certainly
loses much of its excitement and
immediacy when we aren’t all
performing in a room together.
Despite these setbacks, I remain
impressed by how adaptable and
positive my professors have been
in approaching them. – Sydney
Cahill, New Providence, N.J.,
Providence College
Our academic advisers are going
beyond and above to make sure all
students are comfortable with this
change. Online tutoring has been
implemented for the success of the
students. We meet with the presi-
dent of the school weekly via
Instagram live along with our aca-
demic advisers via Zoom. I’m a
hands-on type of person, and as a
member of the Quinnite Nation I
am proud to say through these
trying times we are an uplifted
community. – Pakedra D. McCoy,
Dallas, Paul Quinn College
Things are much more self-man-
aged. My emotions toward school
range from feeling unmotivated to
writing shadow letters to my pro-
fessors apologizing for my lack of
focus. I have always loved school,
but this doesn’t feel like learning.
My professors try to create nor-
malcy, but there is none. – Alexsis
Tarte, Fairfax, Va., George Mason
University
I’m a junior, and my anxiety is at an
all-time high. More recently, my
exams, assignments, discussion
boards and document submissions
have been piling up. I work at a
noncorporate, family-owned,
restaurant drive-through full time
and go to school full time. With
Shreveport and Louisiana becom-
ing a hot spot, I fear I might attract
the virus by working, but going to
work is my escape from school and
general life. – Jacob Pickett,
Stonewall, La., Louisiana State
University, Shreveport
Going to school filled me to the
brim with nirvana, that is, until we
switched to online instruction.
Now, my education is no longer an
escape into “me time” — it is
midnight after a long day, dry-eyed
and exhausted, staring blankly at
my laptop screen searching for
motivation. As a new mother of a
4-month-old, in-person classes
held the irreplaceable value of “me
time.” Even the hourlong com-
mutes, with raging drivers and
construction detours, were enjoy-
able because of the break it gave
me to just do something for myself.
– Alexis Coates, Ridley Park,
Penn., West Chester University of
Pennsylvania
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 NY L5

Higher Education

How 2 Colleges Manage a New Reality

SPELMAN COLLEGE CRAIG F. WALKER/THE BOSTON GLOBE, VIA GETTY IMAGES

Founders Day at Spelman College in Atlanta in 2019. A testing site at the Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick.

effort that was required to make that move in just

Spelman College, which cherishes
close relationships, has become ‘a
bastion of distance and separation.’
By MARY SCHMIDT CAMPBELL
Spelman College recently
celebrated its first virtual
Founders Day. The virus had
compelled the college (like all
colleges) to empty its resi-
dence halls and abruptly shift
from in-person to online in-
struction.
Determined not to be dispirited, students gath-
ered digital images and videos from around the
country for a week’s worth of events. A live stream
of a recorded Founders Day convocation capped
the week’s activities on the anniversary of the
college’s founding on April 11, 1881.
As I watched the celebration on my laptop, I
could feel the joy wash over me — a reprieve, a
moment of reflection — after moving at breakneck
speed to become something we were not meant to
be. Overnight, our small liberal arts college, de-
signed exclusively for the success of black women,
which cherishes close relationships among its
Spelman Sisters and between students and faculty,
Mary Schmidt Campbell is the president of Spelman
College.
had become a bastion of distance and separation.
The crisis of Covid-19 was redefining our reality.
I had retired five years ago, after an almost
40-year career in arts and education in New York
City, having lived through a lifetime of crises. New
York City’s near bankruptcy greeted my arrival at
the Studio Museum in Harlem in the 1970s. Like so
many arts organizations in those years, we
teetered on the brink. But the city stood by its
cultural institutions, and the museum is now a
major cultural force.
Twenty years later, when two airplanes flew into
the twin towers one week after classes had started
at New York University, my students at the Tisch
School of the Arts, where I served as dean, asked,
what does it mean to study art, when the world is
falling apart?
Seven years after Sept. 11, the nation’s economy
went into a tailspin. American families faced a
recession and lost homes as well as jobs. Colleges
and universities watched their endowments and
enrollments shrink.
All of these challenges were daunting. But none
matches the ubiquity of the threats we are facing
now.
Covid-19 is a new reality for everyone, and it is
disconcerting for some of our students, painfully
wrenching for others.
The first jolt was being uprooted from what had
been home to two-thirds of Spelman’s 2,000 wom-
en. As they silently moved out of the residence
CONTINUED ON PAGE L10
The Community College of Rhode
Island found itself working in
different ways, right away.
By MEGHAN HUGHES
Forty-eight miles long and 37
miles wide, Rhode Island is the
smallest state in the country.
With a population of about a
million people, we’re made up
of towns and small cities, and
that means you almost always
see someone you know when
you go to the grocery store.
We had our first confirmed case of Covid-19 on
March 1, and that day changed our college forever.
C.C.R.I. is the only community college in Rhode
Island and the largest in New England. What I
learned right away is that my team and I would
need to make decisions quickly, with imperfect and
incomplete information, to maximize the safety of
our 13,000 students and 1,300 employees.
As the number of coronavirus cases in Rhode
Island and nationwide grew, we announced on
March 11 that we were moving to remote teaching
and learning beginning March 23.
It’s hard to describe to outsiders the kind of
Meghan Hughes is the president of the Community
College of Rhode Island.
12 days. Well-run colleges are known for thought-
ful planning and intentional execution. The pan-
demic forced us to work in a new way and to do it
instantaneously. This semester, our faculty mem-
bers are teaching 2,400 sections of 600 different
courses.
Before March 23, just 13 percent of our courses
were delivered online, and only 19 percent of our
faculty had taught an online course before. That’s
true for a lot of American colleges. What makes it
even more challenging for community colleges is
that many of our students come from low-income
families.
More than 900 students let us know they didn’t
have access to Wi-Fi at home, or a device like a
laptop to attend classes remotely. Half of our stu-
dents had never taken an online class.
So we had faculty who needed to learn how to
teach their courses in a new way and students
who needed to learn how to go to college in a new
way. We had administrators, including me, and
staff members who all had to learn how to work
entirely from home. And we had to learn it while
doing it.
The faculty spent the week before we launched
doing virtual training with our instructional de-
sign team and getting support from our I.T. group.
Our student services team started doing video
meetings with students for services like admis-
sions coaching, advising and tutoring, and our
finance team figured out how to move a 50-year-
CONTINUED ON PAGE L10

It’s time to recognize the teachers that are

TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE
of higher education.

Baylor Un
niversity is seeking nominations for
the nationallly renowned Robert Foster Cherry
Award for Grea at Teaching. Three finalists,
selected from a variiety of eligible disc
ciplines,
will each receive $15,000 0 and d participate in a
series of lectures at Baylo
or Uniiversity during
the fall 2021 semester.. The departme ent of each
finalist will receivee $10,000 to promote e great
teaching at theeir home university. The 20 022
Cherry Award d recipient will receive $250,00 00
and teach inn residence at Baylor for a semeste er.

NOMINATIONS OPEN MAY 1.

For more information, visit baylor.edu/cherry_awards.
L6 NY
Teachers’ Voices
We asked teachers about their
experience with the change to
online instruction. The following
comments have been edited and
condensed.
So much of what we do in class-
rooms are driven by student re-
sponses and reactions. I’d give
anything to watch their faces light
up, their hands in the air, their
smiles and fist pumps when they
share a new learning or big idea with
me. – Meg Burke, teaches grades 3
through 8, Doylestown, Pa.
Here I am, at 66, within a year of full
retirement, having to learn how to
use Google Classroom with 35 first
graders at various places in their
learning. I feel as though I am at-
tempting to drive on a road that I am
simultaneously paving while also
following a paper map. – Janet
Kass, teaches first grade, Bloom-
ingburg, N.Y.
Over 80 percent of the students at
my school come from low-income
families, and only a quarter of my
students have a computer at home.
For economically disadvantaged
students, this outbreak means they
will fall even further behind their
wealthier peers. – Kaitlin Barnes,
teaches fourth grade, Baltimore
Dear Parents: I promise you that we
have your child’s best interest at
heart. We worry about them, we
miss them, we want more than
anything to be back in the class-
room. We don’t teach because we
like figuring out how to work Zoom,
we don’t teach to stare at a screen
all day, we don’t teach to field an
onslaught of emails each day. We
teach because we love your chil-
dren. – Kara Conceison, teaches
sixth grade, Watertown, Mass.
I work with continuation high school
students (where I have been for 23
years) who have a deep connection
to our school, and I know we all feel
lost, lost without the daily hugs, fist
bumps and dose of reality we try to
provide to each other. – Gregg
Witkin, teaches grades 10 through
12, San Jose, Calif.
I miss getting to celebrate with
them, cry with them, laugh with
them. These are memories with my
seniors that I will never get back.
That is what hurts the most. –
Stacey Travis, teaches high school
math, Maryville, Tenn.
I miss real conversations with my
students, about anything, but
particularly about their writing. It
doesn’t seem like students have
any motivation to participate in
things outside of school.
– Matthew Ebersole, teaches
eighth grade, Gloucester, Va.
Teaching involves human connec-
tion, and I feel like that’s been taken
away from me. – Mathew Kennedy,
teaches grades 7 and 8, New Or-
leans
My students are eighth graders.
They may not be learning as much
history as my former students, or
writing as many essays, but they are
LIVING history right now. But they’re
learning so much — resilience, time
management and how to be respon-
sible for their own learning.
– Lauren Brown, teaches eighth
grade, Oak Park, Ill.
I believe that this distance learning
has enhanced portions of my teach-
ing. I am now allowed to utilize
technology that perhaps I haven’t
had time to before. I’ve also noticed
that my students who struggled
academically in class are excelling
online. – Jodi Ramos, teaches sixth
grade, San Antonio
No amount of online instruction can
replace the power and potential of
student-teacher relationships and
the learning that happens in that
context. Both teachers and students
are the lesser for that. – Joshua
Fleming, teaches ninth grade,
Redmond, Wash.
I attempted a Zoom discussion
about the end of “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream” with my eighth
graders. In response to my ques-
tions, I heard two or three strong
ideas and a parent asking about
chores. It made me a little sad, since
the play is always a favorite of ours,
and our study of it ended in such an
anticlimactic way. – Pauline Brew,
teaches grades 6-8, Columbus,
Ohio
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Outsmarting a Microbe
Public school districts, thrust into turmoil
by the pandemic, are slowly finding ways to cope.
A police officer helps load food into school buses that will deliver it to students and their families from Beech Street School in Manchester, N.H.
By CHRIS BERDIK
In some cities, school buses now deliver
daily paper packets of schoolwork, along
with bagged breakfasts and lunches. In
others, schools use PBS’s “Nova” pro-
gram to help teach science. Elsewhere,
teachers hold daily virtual office hours to
check on the academic and emotional
well-being of students they can no longer
meet face to face.
Confronting the challenge of lengthy
school closures because of coronavirus,
the nation’s roughly 13,000 public school
districts are scrambling to cope. Almost
no district was truly ready to plunge into
remote learning full time and with no end
in sight.
There is no one-size-fits-all remedy
and no must-have suite of digital learn-
ing tools. Leaders have largely had to
find their own way, spurring a hodge-
podge of local innovations. As the strug-
gle continues, a few overarching lessons
learned — about equity, expectations and
communication — are now helping
schools navigate this crisis on the fly.
“Nobody knows the right path for-
ward,” said Robin Lake, director of the
Center on Reinventing Public Education,
a nonpartisan education research center
in Seattle that has compiled an online
database of coronavirus response plans
provided by scores of districts across the
country as a resource for other educa-
tors. “We’re all going to have to try things
and give each other grace.”
Inequity Looms Large
After dealing with the first priority —
making sure students were safe and fed
— schools had to figure out how to keep
the learning alive. But America’s persist-
ent digital divide has greatly hampered
efforts toward this goal. While most
school buildings are fairly well stocked
with computers and high-speed internet,
millions of students’ homes are not, par-
ticularly in lower-income and rural ar-
eas.
This disparity in home computer and
internet access, known as the “home-
work gap,” was a slow-burning problem
for most districts in the days when
schools were in session and students
could get online at libraries, after-school
programs, coffee shops and other com-
munity gathering spots.
With everything shut down, the
chronic issue of home internet access be-
came an immense challenge. Indeed, be-
cause there was unequal access to learn-
ing, many districts initially shied away
from offering anything educational on-
line, sending only links to optional, self-
directed activities, such as math games.
Now, in an effort to narrow the digital
access gap, school leaders and communi-
ty partners have devised a bevy of cre-
ative, albeit short-term, solutions. In ad-
dition to the schoolwork deliveries and
the PBS broadcasts, many districts have
organized the distribution of Wi-Fi hot
spots, computers and smartphones, in-
cluding refurbished devices donated by
local businesses (more than 80 percent of
the districts in the reinvention center’s
database say they are providing technol-
ogy assistance to families).
Miami-Dade County Public Schools,
for instance, sent home about 110,000
tablets and other mobile devices, and
more than 8,000 smartphones that dou-
ble as Wi-Fi hot spots. Many broadband
providers are also adding capacity, lifting
caps on data and offering extended free
trial periods. In South Carolina, many of
the same buses that take breakfasts and
lunches to families stick around to beam
out Wi-Fi from routers on board.
Adjust Expectations
The center’s database is filled with ex-
amples of how districts are trying to keep
learning going from a distance. Many
This article was published in cooperation
with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news
organization that covers education.
Grades K- 12
teachers use “synchronous” classes,
where they and students meet simulta-
neously on platforms like Google Hang-
outs or Microsoft Teams. Some also
record those lessons for students who
can’t meet at the appointed hour. The
Richmond Public Schools in Virginia of-
fer on-demand online tutoring sessions.
To boost parent participation, many dis-
tricts offer webinars and other online in-
struction to help adults gain fluency in
the schools’ digital tools and guide them
through resources. Some, such as Phila-
delphia and Miami-Dade, have set up
phone hotlines in addition to email and
web-based communication, in several
languages, for families seeking help with
distance learning or other needs.
But experts emphasize that schools
should not expect to replicate what they
could achieve in the classroom, and
should pursue an approach suited for
their own students and teachers and
their distance-learning capabilities.
Online education and remote educa-
tion are two very different things, said
Steve Kossakoski, chief executive of the
New Hampshire-based Virtual Learning
Academy Charter School, which has
been hosting free webinars for educators
seeking digital-learning guidance.
“Even in a district that’s able to send
every kid home with a laptop,” he said,
“you’re still trying to adapt a model that’s
been designed for a classroom.” Content
aside, teachers in school can walk among
their students and provide immediate
feedback, spot frustration or flagging at-
tention, and assign students to work in
small groups — all of which is extremely
difficult to manage online.
Mr. Kossakoski’s advice: “Keep it sim-
ple and be consistent.” Some of his webi-
nar attendees have noticed that teachers
in their schools are using different tools
to reach the same students. “One teacher
uses Zoom, another uses Google Hang-
outs and a third uses something else,” he
said. “It’s not anybody’s fault, but for the
student it’s very confusing.”
Nevertheless, teachers should use the
level of technology they’re comfortable
with, said Michael Barbour, associate
professor of instructional design at the
College of Education and Health Serv-
ices at California’s Touro University:
“Let’s not get too clever. When it comes
to distance learning, you don’t have to be
high-tech to be effective.”
He suggested, for example, that teach-
ers could email students a video link to a
news report about an issue, or a histori-
cal documentary, with a few key ques-
tions and a post-viewing writing prompt.
“For a lot of parents, students and
teachers, remote learning will be com-
pletely new, and where it’s new, it’s im-
portant to set realistic goals every day,”
said Susan Patrick, chief executive of the
Aurora Institute, The institute, an advo-
cacy organization, promotes compe-
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
KERSHAW COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT
Above center, Julian Negron, left, and
Jerrell Boykin packed laptops for students
at a Miami high school. Above,
Wi-Fi-equipped buses are loaded with
lunches for delivery in Elgin, S.C.
tency-based education, in which courses
are broken down into discrete skills and
knowledge that students master at their
own pace. These goals could include cre-
ating a schedule that sets aside time for
reading a book or pursuing other
projects that pry students away from
their computers, including arts and
crafts projects or learning a new skill,
such as cooking.
Start Early
In the first weeks of shutdowns, many
districts followed state guidelines and of-
fered only optional learning resources —
like practice sheets, educational videos
and recommended reading — without
teacher-led instruction or feedback or
the expectation that the work would
“count” in any way. They hesitated partly
out of digital-equity concerns and partly
for fear of transgressing federal laws on
things like tracking of student progress
and accommodations for students with
disabilities (such as accepting student
work in a variety of formats and provid-
ing tutors and speech therapy sessions).
The government has since relaxed
many of those regulations, offering
waivers for educators scrambling to
serve their communities. At the same
time, many districts raised the bar for
teaching and learning as it became clear
that closures would stretch deep into the
spring, and potentially for the rest of the
academic year, as they now have in the
majority of states.
By early April, some large school dis-
tricts, such as those in Chicago and Min-
neapolis, had begun phasing out their op-
ELIZABETH FRANTZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
tional-only approach in favor of stand-
ards-based lessons, with teachers taking
attendance and providing feedback,
tests and grades. Many of these same
districts are using only review material,
switching to pass/fail grading, or giving
tests that gauge progress while forgoing
final exams.
Some tried a more rigorous approach
early on, despite the shortcomings.
“When we first went out, and we were
distributing all these Chromebooks on
the fly, we thought about just having it be
optional, extended learning,” said Pam-
ela Swanson, superintendent of West-
minster Public Schools outside Denver.
But then “we agreed that kids need to be
in class, so to speak.” The district already
had an internal learning-management
system that housed lesson plans, orga-
nized assignments and tracked student
progress online, she said. Now, with stu-
dents logging into it from home, “this is
school until further notice.”
Rhode Island began planning for dis-
tance learning in late February — a week
or two before most places — after the
state’s first known coronavirus case was
traced to a school trip to Italy. The state’s
department of education immediately
asked school districts to start planning
for possible closures, and soon moved up
spring break to give schools time to in-
tensify preparations, including all-out ef-
forts to get devices and Wi-Fi into stu-
dents’ homes.
“This wasn’t about whether we’ll do it
or not,” said the state’s commissioner of
education, Angélica Infante-Green.
“That never crossed our minds. It was
about, ‘How will we do it?’ ”
Districts need to try things before
they’re fully worked out, said Chelsea
Waite, a research fellow at the Chris-
tensen Institute who focuses on person-
alized learning. That demands a fluid, it-
erative approach, one that seeks and ad-
justs to feedback.
For example, in New Jersey, the Mor-
ris School District’s “virtual learning
hub” includes surveys, divided by grade
level, that ask parents how things are go-
ing (how much help children need from
them or older siblings, for example, and
whether the resources are easily accessi-
ble and the workload seems appropri-
ate). And when teachers try out digital
techniques learned from the district’s on-
line professional development offerings,
they can share their problems and suc-
cesses during daily virtual meetings
with their principals, who themselves
have regular check-ins with the district’s
central office.
“We’re creating a feedback loop so we
make sure that we’re seeing our situation
clearly,” said the Morris superintendent,
Mackey Pendergrast. “We said, ‘Let’s do
this in baby steps.’ ”
Stay Connected
In some districts, teachers and staff
spend hours every day reaching out to
students and their families, many of
whom are stretched thin by job losses,
child care stress, overdue rent and health
worries that can take precedence over
learning.
The most important thing, said Mr.
Barbour of Touro University, “is to re-
assure these kids that there’s someone
out there — whether it’s on the other end
of an email, a phone call or an online
learning tool — who cares about them
and wants them to learn and succeed.”
Teachers and administrators need to
check in with each other, too, as they con-
front this crisis while siloed at home, of-
ten with their own stir-crazy children
and the overarching stress and worry of
a deadly pandemic.
“We flipped this switch almost literally
overnight,” Ms. Swanson said. “We need
to continually talk to our teachers about
giving them grace. We don’t expect you
to be experts in this right away.”
She added: “That’s a tough message
for teachers, because they want to be
perfect. But that’s not possible.”
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 NY L7

Grades K-12

Advice for Parents

Rule No. 1: Take a deep breath. It’s not like you have to
teach calculus or advanced biology. At least not yet.

By MELINDA WENNER MOYER
There was a moment this month when I
was helping my 8-year-old with his school
science project while spelling the word
“mermaid” aloud for my 5-year-old while
browning meat on the stove while fielding
a work call. That, I think, was the closest
my head has ever come to exploding.
It’s hard enough to be a calm and effec-
tive parent during a pandemic in which
there’s a shortage of toilet paper. When
you also factor in having to teach your
children fractions and social studies, sur-
viving each day becomes a superhuman
endeavor.
To ease our collective parental burden, I
gathered tips from education researchers,
teachers and longtime home schooling
parents on things we can do to make dis-
tance learning easier and more effective.
First: Relax your expectations. Your
children are probably not going to learn
advanced calculus this spring, and that’s
OK. What we are doing now is not the
same as traditional home schooling.
“Home schooling is a choice,” said Beth
Maloney, a mother and also a teacher at
Sunset Hills Elementary School in Sur-
prise, Ariz. “It’s something that you go
into having made the decision to do it.
You’ve prepped for it, you undertake that
as your job.”
What we’re attempting now is some-
thing else entirely — some call it “crisis
schooling”— and we can’t possibly give
our children the kind of learning envi-
ronment that home schooling parents
provide during a regular school year. The
goal is just to get through these next
months with our lives (and, ideally, our
sanity) intact.
Still, one thing that may help is to
“make a schedule for school that fits your
family” and to try to keep it somewhat
consistent from day to day, said Angela
Victory, a mother who teaches fifth grade
language arts at the New Albany Elemen-
tary School in Mississippi.
My husband and I print a schedule
every day, and the structure helps to
ground our children and create a new
normal. Teachers say the schedule doesn’t
have to mimic a regular school day or
even involve schoolwork first thing in the
morning — do what works best for you
and your children — but ideally, it should
include short blocks of focused schoolwork
interrupted by snack and meal breaks,
outdoor play and time for activities such
as reading and crafts.
(Of course, how much you’ll be able to
do largely depends on your circumstances.
My husband and I can work remotely and
have flexible schedules. We also have
computers, tablets and internet at home.
Many families aren’t so fortunate, and
they may not be able to do as much.)
Keep in mind, too, that learning blocks
can be short. In March, the Illinois State
Board of Education published remote
learning recommendations that advised
parents to aim for focused learning blocks
of three to 10 minutes at a time for chil-
dren in grades K through 2; 10 to 15 min-
utes for grades 3 to 5 and 30 minutes for
grades 6 to 12.
You may also want to set up a consis-
tent space for schoolwork. Keep it stocked
with what they might need: pencils,
erasers, paper, other craft supplies and
maybe a dictionary.
And “do what you can to make that
learning space as distraction-free as possi-
ble,” suggested James Lane, Ph.D., a pro-
fessor of elementary education at Colum-
bia College in South Carolina. Ideally, you
won’t have a TV blaring in the back-
ground, and you’ll close the blinds if things
are happening outside. If your children
frequently get drawn in by texts or app
notifications, turn off your Wi-Fi or change
their notification or device settings.
If you have a very active or creative
child, though, you might want to experi-
ment with more flexible work envi-
ronments.
“Some kids, like my daughter, learn best
while moving,” said Michelle Mista, who
lives in the Bay Area and has been home
schooling her sixth-grade daughter since
kindergarten. “One of the main things that
I’ve found helpful as a home-schooler is
letting go of the idea of what learning
‘should’ look like. Learning at home often
doesn’t look like what we may be used to
in a classroom environment with a teacher
at a board, students at their desks.”
Christie Megill, who lives in New York
City and has been home schooling her
three children for three years, agreed.
“One of the biggest lessons home school-
ing has taught me is flexibility,” she said.
“If you think it’s time for your kids’ writ-
ing lesson, but they’re bouncing off the
walls and need to create an obstacle
course inside the house to burn off energy,
you can change direction.”
Use your discretion, too, on how much
schoolwork you make your children do.
When I saw that my 5-year-old grasped a
particular literacy concept the other day, I
didn’t make her do the extra three sheets
of practice.
MONIKA AICHELE
Let go of the idea of
what learning ‘should’
look like.
“I’m not saying ignore the assign-
ments,” said Barbara Stengel, Ph.D., a
philosopher of education and professor
emerita at Vanderbilt University, but
during a crisis, parents “don’t need drill
and practice for the sake of drill and prac-
tice.”
Still, if your children are struggling with
their schoolwork in ways that concern
you, or if you’re struggling to keep up,
don’t hesitate to contact their teachers and
ask for help. “They know what your child
has responded to in a classroom situation,”
Dr. Lane said. “They probably also know
what has been really challenging for your
child.”
If your children are pushing back on the
very idea of doing schoolwork at home,
schedule a one-on-one conversation be-
tween the teacher and your child, Ms.
Maloney suggested.
It can help when the teacher explains
that school is still happening — it’s just
happening at home now.
But what if your school isn’t doing much
distance learning, and you want more?
One excellent resource that began in
March is WideOpenSchool, a free col-
lection of online learning experiences
curated by Common Sense Media, an
independent nonprofit organization that
provides technology recommendations for
families and schools.
Teachers also recommend Khan Acad-
emy, a free website that engages children
(and adults) in different subjects; Epic, a
digital library featuring 40,000 children’s
books; Storyline Online, a website featur-
ing videos of well-known actors reading
children’s books; and Starfall, an educa-
tional website and app for children in
pre-K through third grade. Your library
may also have audiobooks and digital
loans available.
You may not be a trained teacher, but as
a parent you probably know more about
teaching than you realize. Trust yourself
and what your children need.
“You have the great strength of knowing
your children better than any teacher
could,” Dr. Stengel said.

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L8 NY
Student Voices
The Learning Network, a site about
teaching and learning with content
from The New York Times, asked
students in grades K through 12 how
they have been coping with remote
learning. The following comments
have been edited and condensed.
I have had more free time, but I feel
less productive, taking more time to
complete each assignment (howev-
er this hasn’t necessarily led to
better results). I very much miss the
social aspect of school. – Ariana
Oppenheimer, 15, the Pennington
School, Lawrenceville, N.J.
I believe that I have it very lucky and
I know that some of my peers are
struggling a lot. I know that my
school is trying very hard to help the
kids, like providing food for children
that relied on school lunches and
having a curbside pickup for laptop
rentals. – Morgan Sharp, 15, Anna
High School, Anna, Texas
Me and my friends often have to
work for quite a long time, like at
least five hours on all the assign-
ments. It’s really boring to read the
lesson info by yourself and then
apply it to your assignments. I feel
like this is the hard part. The good
thing, however, is that we don’t have
to wake up at a certain time, so we
are at least now getting enough
sleep. – Danny Peng, 13, William
Alexander Middle School, Brooklyn
Remote learning has introduced a
new classroom dynamic, in which
the inability to see one’s class-
mates/students causes classmates
to begin speaking at the same time
(and consequently stop speaking)
and teachers to move on to the next
subject despite a student’s hurried
attempt to type their question into
the chat box. – Cindy Li, 16, Glenda
Dawson High School, Pearland,
Texas
I have committed to college, school
has been canceled (any student’s
dream), and ice cream can be eaten
for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So
why do I still wish that I was back in
school? – Ethan Turkewitz, 17, New
Rochelle High School, New Ro-
chelle, N.Y.
There are some distractions when
learning at home. Since everyone is
required to do remote learning, it
can be really loud if there are people
in your house who are also doing the
same thing. – Alvin L., 14, William
Alexander Middle School, Brooklyn
Since my school has started online
class, it’s been harder to motivate
myself to work and pay attention. I
also miss my art elective. We had
our first online art class today and it
was only 20 minutes long, which
was strange because it’s usually two
hours. – Alexis Jennings, 16, School
of the Woods High School, Houston
It can become very stressful to
completely shift our schedules and
our academic plans. Due to this, the
one-day-at-a-time method has
become extremely helpful for me. –
Valeria Casas, 17, Glenbard West
High School, Glen Ellyn, Ill.
At the beginning I was so confused
and didn’t know how to work any-
thing and set up my Google class-
room for different classes, and keep
track of all the homework. But I’m
getting the hang of it. Hopefully
things can go back to normal, be-
cause I miss going to school. – Mia
Mohamed, 13, William Alexander
Middle School, Brooklyn
Online school has been a stressful
process for many of my friends and
me. I live in an area where internet
access and Wi-Fi are hard to get
and, as a result, I’m not only
stressed about school but I’m often
anxious that I will not be able to join
and maintain access to online
classes and assignments. – Kitty
Evans, 16, the Pennington School,
Stockton, N.J.
Remote learning has been difficult
for me. I have encountered obsta-
cles such as slow internet, procrasti-
nation, and feelings of isolation from
my friends and family. While technol-
ogy does allow us to interact with
each other somewhat effectively, it
should not replace face-to-face
interactions. – Argelina Jeune, 15,
Valley Stream North High School,
Valley Stream, N.Y.
I wake up every morning and do
homework all day long. I thought
having all my classes online would
make my life easier because I’d be
able to work ahead, but I’m actually
falling behind. – Laney McDermott,
17, Williams High School, Burling-
ton, N.C.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Special-Needs Setback
With schools closed, educators are innovating to
serve students who require intensive guidance.
By ALINA TUGEND
They have spent decades honing their
patience and optimism at one of the
most demanding jobs in education:
teaching children with special needs.
But many of these veteran educators
say they feel more worried, depleted
and, at times, more helpless than ever
as they try to teach their students —
many of whom need intensive one-on-
one guidance — through their screens.
“Serving students with special needs
is already a challenge on a regular
basis,” said Estella Owoimaha-Church,
a theater and English teacher in Los
Angeles. “Now, trying to meet accom-
modations and modifications through a
computer is near impossible. It’s hard
to figure out where to start.” A number
of her students need special education.
While many teachers are struggling,
the obstacles experienced by those who
teach children and young adults with
disabilities are daunting.
It is not only because their students’
challenges often make it more difficult
for them to learn remotely, but also
because districts are required under
the federal Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act to provide specific serv-
ices and meet particular goals within a
certain time frame to any child deemed
to be eligible for special education
services. That can include not just
academics, but related services such as
occupational, physical and speech
therapy.
Those details are all laid out in a
student’s Individualized Education
Program, or I.E.P. According to the
Education Department, seven million
children ages 3 to 21, or 14 percent of all
public-school students, receive such
special education services.
Parents of those students “have a
right to sue their school district if their
children fail to make progress,” said
Leah Murphy, an impartial hearing
officer in New York State who presides
over special education cases.
And that means teachers and admin-
istrators are not just worried about
helping their students learn under
exceptional circumstances, but also
meeting legal mandates.
“My type of special education is
really hands-on,” said Marci Levins,
who teaches 16 students 18 to 22 years
old in an adult transition class in Cerri-
tos, Calif. “For the academic goals in
the I.E.P.s, I can do them over the com-
puter. I cannot meet their vocational
goals, which is to be on job sites and
learn skills.”
Back before the coronavirus struck,
some days her students rode public
transportation or walked to their job
placements at local stores; other days
they might have gone to a nearby mall
to test their knowledge about such
things as making change and how to
find a certain item.
“For students in this kind of pro-
gram, there’s such a community com-
ponent, and the community’s gone
now,” Ms. Levins said.
The last week before the school shut
down in mid-March, she spent all her
Grades K-12
Top, Danielle Kovach of Succasunna, N.J., a teacher, at the dining room table with
her sons, from left, Ryan, 12; Joseph, 15; and Michael, 19. While they studied, she
held an online class with her students with special needs. Above, Jordan Daleson’s
son Alistair, 6, who has autism, watching a “circle time” video from his teacher.
time feverishly teaching the young
adults how to use their new iPads,
which they took home the day before
school closed to start their remote
learning.
And the technology challenges alone
have been mind-boggling. “I don’t think
anyone’s to blame now,” she said. “This
last week of school everyone was
scrambling, and it was too little, too
late.”
But as the weeks move on, she’s
seeing improvement. “At one time I had
10 of my students in Google Classroom,
and that was a crowning achievement,”
‘I’m so worried — am I giving
them everything they need and
doing everything I can do?’
she said. “But I won’t give up until I
have all of them.”
Danielle Kovach, who teaches sec-
ond- and third-grade special education
in Hopatcong, N.J., said she and her
colleagues agonized about how to as-
sess their children adequately now.
Dr. Kovach, who was voted New
Jersey’s teacher of the year in 2011,
said she was working on her quarterly
I.E.P. reports one night and, “I said to
my husband, ‘I don’t know where to go
from here’ and I had to take a moment
to cry. I’m so worried — am I giving
them everything they need and doing
everything I can do?”
As things seem to change almost
daily, special education teachers are
leaning on each other to find resources,
understand software and boost morale.
JORDAN DALESON
And that’s true not only in their own
schools or districts, but also across the
country.
Since mid-March, the Council for
Exceptional Children, a resource and
advocacy organization for those in-
volved in educating children with spe-
cial needs, waived its annual $65 mem-
bership fee.
About 20,000 new teachers, adminis-
trators and aides signed on in the first
couple of weeks, doubling its member-
ship, said Chad Rummel, executive
director of the Council for Exceptional
Children. On the site, members can
access information and updates, but
also share through forums their ques-
tions and fears.
“We’re trying to share best practices,
and not just say, here’s what the re-
search says, but here’s what Kelly’s
doing in Indiana that you might try
too,” Mr. Rummel said.
Teachers are worrying not only about
keeping their students’ academics up to
speed, but also about how they will
cope with being suddenly torn from
their teachers, friends and programs.
“The most challenging part of this —
first and foremost — is not being able
to be there with my kids every day,” Dr.
Kovach said. “It’s not just making sure
they’re doing their work, but making
sure they know they’re safe and loved.”
Ms. Owoimaha-Church is particularly
concerned about some of her autistic
students, who had finally succeeded in
becoming part of a social network in
school — something that can be partic-
ularly hard for those with autism.
“I knew when this was coming down,
it would shake them to their core,” she
said. “Their routine is off, and the peer
support group they managed to create
MIKE KOVACH
for themselves — through clubs and
hanging out at lunch — are now gone.”
One high school junior, who came out
of his shell in the last year by bonding
with a group of seniors, became very
depressed early on after classes shut
down, Ms. Owoimaha-Church said.
“At one point, he just sat on the
phone with me for 40 minutes,” she
said. “He’s just not doing well, socially,
emotionally.
“He asked, ‘When are we going back
to school?’” And when I said, ‘probably
not this school year,’ he just started to
cry. He realized he won’t see his friends
again because they’re all seniors.”
Jordan Daleson, a remedial reading
teacher at an elementary school in
Beaverton, Ore., worries about the
children she typically sees only at lunch
and recesses, but for whom she has
become a source of informal emotional
support.
“I miss them, and I hope they miss
me, but I also hope they don’t,” she
said.
And while including parents in the
remote learning process is crucial for
these students, teachers are also very
aware of the burdens everyone is fac-
ing.
Some parents are essential workers
and unable to be home with their chil-
dren to assist or supervise their learn-
ing. Others have lost jobs or are balanc-
ing several children all learning at
different levels.
“A lot of this isn’t just being there to
support the students, but also the stu-
dents’ families,” Dr. Kovach said. “This
is what we deal with in the classroom
all the time, but now we’re focusing on
it virtually.”
Ms. Daleson, knows both sides of
special education — her son Alistair, 6,
is autistic. He gets occupational and
speech therapies among other serv-
ices; when his school shut down, he
was learning how to hold a pencil and
use the toilet.
“My son is extremely rigid with his
schedule, and there’s no academic focus
with him at home,” Ms. Daleson said.
“I am currently doing half of Alis-
tair’s schoolwork with him while he is
in the bath, because it is the one place
in our home he will reliably focus,” she
said. “Every moment is precious for
him. He’s trying to get caught up with
typical kids.”
Claire Neff, who teaches reading and
mathematics in a low-income elemen-
tary school in Bloomington, Ind., said a
watershed moment was when she and
a parent of one of her students with
special needs were grappling with the
technology.
“We met for an hour one day, and it
was the blind leading the blind,” Ms.
Neff said. “We spent another hour the
second day and finally got her on. It
was such a binding experience — we
were literally hugging through our
computers. We did not quit, and now
I’m teaching her kid.
“The first time I meet her in person,
I’m going to give her a real hug.”
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020 NY L9

Lifelong Learning

Added Value
Museums, libraries, zoos and even federal agencies
are offering lessons and activities for all ages.

By TED LOOS
Sometime in mid- to late March, it
seemed as if the whole world suddenly
shut down and moved online in a matter
of days as the coronavirus crisis intensi-
fied.
Luckily, institutions ranging from mu-
seums and libraries to the United States
House of Representatives and NASA
have been creating content and access
for children who are stuck at home and
learning remotely. In some cases, the
changes beef up existing educational re-
sources, and in others brand-new options
are now there for the taking. Best of all,
most of them are free.
Here are some of the efforts to bring
educational material home to laptops,
tablets and smartphones for students in
grades K-12.

Art
Museums have responded to the chal-
lenge with enthusiasm. Children can use
the JourneyMaker tool on the website of
the Art Institute of Chicago to create a
personalized tour through the museum.
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the MetKids page on the website saw a
1,669 percent jump in unique page views
between March 12 (the temporary clo-
sure went into effect the next day) and
April 5. In addition, it started “Storytime LACMA THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

with The Met,” an online version of the

“Storytime in Nolen Library” program.
On Thursdays at noon, it can be watched
on the Met’s YouTube channel and Face-
book page.
The museum’s partnership with
Microsoft’s Flipgrid app, which began in
November, has also intensified. The mu-
seum supplies content to the educational
app, and children can document and
send their reactions back to a teacher as
a completed assignment.
An Egyptian mummy topped by a
painted portrait of a 20-something man
with a mustache, dating from A.D. 80 to
100, is the most popular work to interact
with on Flipgrid so far. “Mummies al-
ways win, no matter the platform,” said
Emily Blumenthal of the Met’s Educa-
tion Department.
The Los Angeles County Museum of
Art redesigned its website to emphasize
content stored there — dubbing itself
LACMA @ Home — rather than its exhi-
bition program.
Among the options are free online
courses, lectures on demand and arti-
cles, interviews and behind-the-scenes
stories from the museum’s blog, Un-
framed. Some of the new features relate
to shows that would otherwise be open,
like the retrospective of the painter Julie
Mehretu that was on view when the mu-
seum closed. One post asked children to
riff on Ms. Mehretu’s dense work, espe-
cially its grounding in maps. Finding the
right materials can count as a “scaven-
ger hunt,” the post said.
Some museum offerings are meant to
tie in to school curriculums: the Brook-
lyn Museum is adapting its China Toolkit
— developed to highlight its Arts of
China collection in conjunction with the
New York Department of Education’s
third-grade lessons on world geography
— to digital learning.
Other activities are more free-form.
The Getty in Los Angeles posted “5 Ideas
to Stay Creative,” featuring drawing as-
signments inspired by items in its vast
art collection. The Philbrook Museum of
Art in Tulsa, Okla., has been posting edu-
cational videos on YouTube with art
lessons, tours and even singalongs.
The 92nd Street Y, a cultural and com-
munity center on New York’s Upper East
Side, has moved almost all of its classes
and children’s activities online, from “In-
tro to Drumming” to “Advanced Tap” to
“Family Drawing Night.”
Not all institutional responses are in-
ternet-based, either: The Barnes Foun-
dation in Philadelphia is providing 600 of
its children’s activity books and coloring
sheets, puzzles and crayon packets to
communities in West and South Philadel-
phia.
Reading
Libraries have certainly stepped up, in-
cluding the Library of Congress, which
on its website offers classic reads for chil-
dren of all ages, from “The Ugly Duck-
ling” to “White Fang.” You don’t even
have to download anything.
The Seattle Public Library made a vir-
tual version of its popular in-branch
story time, and it is working to extend the
reach of its LibraryLink card for stu-
dents and teachers, giving access to all of
its digital resources. The Denver Public
Library has a 24/7 phone-a-story service
in four languages and offers ideas on how
to turn those stories into educational
challenges (call 720-865-8500).
The New York Public Library, which
primarily serves the Bronx, Manhattan
and Staten Island, already offers access
to hundreds of thousands of books via its
e-reading app, SimplyE. (New York State
residents can use the app to apply for a
library card, too.)
The library’s closure, which began
March 13, has also produced new initia-
tives, including a partnership with the
online tutoring company Brainfuse. With
a library card, anyone can access an on-
demand virtual tutor for free.
“The reality is that we have spent a
decade preparing to serve the public
when we’re closed,” the library’s presi-
dent, Anthony Marx, said of its push to
move services online. During the coro-
navirus crisis, people have responded:
“For the SimplyE app, we saw a sixfold
spike in usage the first week we were
closed,” he said.
Science
Zoos are popular among kids anytime,
and the same goes for their online ver-
sions. The San Diego Zoo has a page for
children on its website with games, tuto-
rials about animals and videos (check
out the always entertaining Baboon
Cam). The National Zoo’s animal web-
cams have been grabbing eyeballs in the
lockdown era, especially the cheetah
cam; a cheetah recently gave birth to
four cubs for the world to witness.
The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta had
a feed from nine underwater webcams
on its website before the pandemic, and
now it has added one called Gator Cross-
ing. For the aquarium, one of its biggest
new additions is its “Deep Sea Learning”
video series. Also new is an At-Home
Learning page on the website that in-
cludes artwork submissions, coloring
pages and other resources for kids.
Although children may not know it,
math is lurking in some of these fun ac-
tivities. “Animals are a great point of en-
try to teach complex lessons about equa-
ing to a wider audience so parents could Clockwise from above left: “Learn:
have something positive on the screen Lines and Layers,” an online art
for their kids.” activity on the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art website; a mummy
Social Studies that dates from A.D. 80 to 100 is
featured in a partnership of the
The New-York Historical Society has re- Metropolitan Museum of Art and the
launched History @ Home, its online Flipgrid app; a class for the 92nd
portal for history and civics programs for Street Y on Zoom; the Georgia
students, teachers and families. Daily Aquarium in Atlanta has a “Deep Sea
lessons are only part of the offerings, Learning” series; and an iPad
which include story times, family book showing the New York Public
clubs — even happy hours for teachers Library’s access app SimplyE.
that include guest scholars. Despite its
name, nearly a third of the users of the
society’s online offerings are from out- The Kids in the House page was creat-
JONATHAN BLANC/THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
side New York State. ed by the Office of the Clerk, which was
Want to pretend to be the chief execu- established in the Constitution and is
tive in a trying time? Test out the interac- run by Cheryl L. Johnson. Part of the site
tive game Playing the President: FDR’s describes her job, an elected position
First Hundred Days. Women & the voted on by all of the representatives,
American Story, which the institution that even many adults don’t know much
calls the nation’s first-ever comprehen- about.
sive digital curriculum guide to Ameri- The various branches of the Smithso-
can women’s history, provides an exten- nian have a wide array of home-learning
sive window on the topic, and the blog options, starting with the online tool Our
History Detectives mixes learning and Story from the National Museum of
fun. American History, helping children ex-
The website of the House of Repre- perience history at home through books,
sentatives features Kids in the House, everyday objects and activities. It con-
chock-a-block with educational activities nects past events with items in the mu-
divided into categories for young learn- seum’s trove. The Smithsonian Learning
ers, grade school, middle school and high Lab has thousands of free activities re-
school. There’s a page on Hispanic lated to 6,000 of the Smithsonian’s differ-
Americans in Congress and information ent collections; for instance, one focuses
on how the House chamber itself has on African-American soldiers in the Civil
GEORGIA AQUARIUM evolved as a physical space — as well as War. For teachers, there’s a new dis-
information about how a bill becomes a tance-learning resources webpage, cre-
law, tailored to each age group. ated in response to the crisis.
VICTORIA FEBRER
tions and population growth,” said the
aquarium’s president and chief execu-
tive, Brian Davis.
When you can barely leave the house,
outer space seems very far away. But
NASA at Home offers tons of resources
for students in elementary, middle and
high school: E-books, virtual tours, pod-
casts, videos and much more, all with an
eye to linking the agency’s work to sci-
ence, technology, engineering and math.
Younger children can learn to launch a
balloon-powered “rocket,” and older ones
can use the web app NASA Home and
City to see how science changes their
world. The Artemis mission to the moon,
scheduled for 2024, has its own landing
page, filled with cool graphics and details.
NASA astronauts are interacting with
children, too. Recently, while aboard the
International Space Station, Christopher
Cassidy and Jessica Meir took part in a
virtual call with students from their home
state, Maine. The Q. and A. was available
on NASA TV for anyone to listen in. The
astronaut Christina Koch, who recently
set a record for longest spaceflight by a
woman, did a series of daily story times
on Instagram.
“I was hearing from many of my
friends and family about the challenges of
working from home while managing
home schooling,” Ms. Koch said in an
email. “I had been doing board games
and reading with my nieces and nephews
over video chat, so I thought about read-
L10 NY
Distance and Separation
CONTINUED FROM PAGE L5
halls, loading up their parents’ waiting
cars, I watched the faces of young peo-
ple in deep mourning.
Their loss was palpable. An emo-
tional toll and unrelenting trauma
weighed heavily. What we came to
realize, as weeks passed, is that even if
students had access to good Wi-Fi, the
latest-model laptop and a room of their
own, the loss of friends, face-to-face
relationships with teachers and men-
tors, and a living, breathing community
was profound.
Spelman’s student government presi-
dent, a graduating senior, referred to
the five stages of grief to explain the
feeling. Grief hangs over all of us. But
for black communities, in particular,
Covid-19 has been especially deadly.
The illness has torn through our com-
munities with hurricane force, felling
friends and loved ones at a rate that far
exceeds that of the general population.
In the face of the disruption, Spel-
man’s faculty and technology team
made the shift from in person to online
instruction with incredible speed and
technical seamlessness. Collaboration
and a lot of good humor prevailed. Yet
even though the college was able to
distribute dozens of laptops, purchase
internet hot spots and new software
tools, I began to hear from many stu-
dents that the bridge over these trou-
bled waters was shaky at best.
They were saying, and would contin-
ue to say, that the transition from in-
person to online was barely bridgeable.
A high-performing student returned
home with no computer or Wi-Fi access,
trying to keep up with her classes on a
cellphone. Another student has cared
for a parent who contracted the illness.
Another has young siblings, home from
school, for whom she has to babysit;
another has children of her own. Com-
muters found themselves out of the job
that enabled them to attend Spelman.
Our students’ exasperation with
those barriers soon turned to anger.
Petitions for an expanded pass/fail and
universal pass circulated. Faculty and
administration adopted an expanded
pass/fail for the spring 2020 semester
and doubled down on making sure that
we were armed with strategies to get
© 2020 Communities In Schools, Inc.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020
Higher Education
SPELMAN COLLEGE
Founders Day 2019 was featured in Spelman’s celebration video this year.
and universities. How far government
For many Spelman students, the stimulus funds can stretch is yet to be
bridge over these troubled waters determined.
Spelman has started planning for
is shaky at best. summer, academic year 2021 and be-
yond. As I play the Founders Day re-
students over the finish line. cording over and over, I listen to the
On top of the academic challenges messages from the past.
are very real financial uncertainties. Of I think about the uncertainty that
the tens of millions of jobs lost, we can greeted the first 10 black women and
rest assured that a large portion will be one black girl who showed up in the
lost by people of color, the prime demo- sooty, cold basement of Friendship
graphic of Spelman and other histori- Baptist Church, 139 years ago; the
cally black colleges and universities. defiance of black women who sought a
Spelman’s population of Pell grant college degree during the Jim Crow
recipients (students whose families years; their activism during the Civil
make $40,000 or less) make up 48 per- Rights Movement that helped change
cent of our student body. Most H.B- the country irrevocably; and Spelman’s
.C.U.s have even higher percentages. emergence in the post-civil rights years
Even before the crisis, the cost of at- as a powerhouse producer of black
tendance was burdensome for students women scientists.
and their families. Listening to the dazzling quilt of
And just as those uncertainties have voices, visual images and music that
burrowed their way into the homes of make up the Founders Day video, I can
our students, they are swirling around see and hear the power of their will to
our institutions. Lost revenue (resi- do whatever it takes to shape the col-
dence halls are a major source of in- lege into what it needs to be. As we
come), lost summer school income, plan the months and years ahead, there
volatile endowments and unpredictable is no question, we will need to call on
enrollments are existential vulnerabili- every ounce of that power, willfulness
ties for all but the wealthiest colleges and imagination.
Forced to Adapt
CONTINUED FROM PAGE L5
old paper payment system online in a
week.
We had wanted to adapt our work in
this way for a long time, but the urgen-
cy imperative to do it hadn’t been there,
and other priorities took its place. The
foundation board, our executive direc-
tor and his team went into overdrive to
find the money to pay for the new stu-
dent devices, the wireless access, and
emergency student support. Our union
leadership reached out right away and
asked how they could help.
Community colleges educate nearly
half of all American college students.
We spend our lives jury-rigging solu-
tions with limited resources. We know
what’s at stake in this crisis: our stu-
dents’ ability to stay in college so they
can graduate and get good jobs. The
economic crash in our state now means
unemployment numbers exceeding
those of the great recession.
Our students work in restaurants,
malls, casinos and other industries that
have been hit hard by what is going on,
and they have been laid off in signifi-
cant numbers. We hear from them
around the clock through our texting
tool.
“This is extremely hard. My entire
family got laid off this week,” wrote one.
Another said, “I’m trying to take care of
my two kids, ages five and seven, and
figure out online schooling for all of us.”
Or: “We’re making the best of it. I’m
juggling one computer with two young-
er siblings who are both trying to do
high school online.”
And because we train the most health
care workers of all the Rhode Island
colleges, our students tell us they’re on
the front lines of the Covid-19 crisis
working long hours on the front line for
the National Guard, hospitals and nurs-
ing homes.
It’s too early for me to predict what
the fallout will be, but I know what
wakes me up at night. First, it’s our
students who won’t be able to stay in
college because they just can’t right
now, either because they couldn’t make
the switch to remote learning quickly
enough or because what they are shoul-
dering in their own families because of
the virus means their education gets
put on hold. Second, it’s people in this
community getting the virus — our
faculty, staff, administrators, students.
This pandemic has already changed
higher education, and this fall I believe
we will see early indicators of what the
lasting change may be. The return on
investment of a college degree will be
under the microscope with students
and their families forced to reconsider
their pre-pandemic choice of a college
and identify more affordable options.
Instead of going to a four-year col-
lege out of state, a student may stay in
the state, possibly living at home and
attending a four-year institution as a
commuting student or enrolling at the
local community college. Now that
students have spent half of a semester
going to college remotely, some will
likely look to online coursework and
online degrees to reduce the cost of a
degree and increase flexibility.
I agree with Patrick Methvin, the
head of postsecondary-success pro-
grams at the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, that some colleges will
close. Tuition-dependent colleges that
are facing diminished fall enrollment,
running operating deficits and have
dwindling endowments are at the great-
est risk. Both private and public institu-
tions will need to quickly build a strong
online presence in order to compete for
students and stabilize enrollment.
How we measure learning may
change. Will competency-based learn-
ing gain widespread acceptance, or will
the traditional credit-hour remain in
place and largely unchallenged? Fi-
nally, I think we will see continued
expansion of delivery models, both
hybrid models — combining in-person
and online learning — and exclusively
online models.
The pandemic mandated that we
innovate, and I’m optimistic the innova-
tion will be retained, adapted and, with
luck, taken to scale across individual
institutions and across the country.
I believe in this community. I’ve
watched C.C.R.I. go from being an
underperforming college graduating
too few students to leading the way
nationally in just a few short years. I
feel extremely lucky and proud to be
working here, and I know we are going
to make it through this crisis stronger
and better than we were before.